LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap Copyright No 

Shelf. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




DANIEL STEELE. 



HALF-HOURS 

WITH 

ST. JOHN'S EPISTLES 



/' BY 

DANIEL STEELE, D. D. 

Recent Professor in the School of Theology of Boston University 

Author of " Love Enthroned," " Milestone Papers," " A Substitute for Holiness 
or Antinomianism Revived," " Commentaries on Leviticus, Numbers, and 
Joshua," " Half-Hours with St. Paul," " Defense of Christian 
Perfection," "Gospel of the Comforter," "Jesus Exultant," 
and Co-author of " People's Commentary," and 
Reviser of " Binney's Theological 
Compend Improved" 



Boston and Chicago 
CHRISTIAN WITNESS COMPANY 
1901 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

MAR, 5 1901 

Copyright entry 
CLASS d <*Xr~ No. 
COPY B. 



Copyright, 1901. 
Christian Witness Company. 



Dedicators 



TO MY PUPILS, WHICH ARE DEACONESSES OF THE 
CHURCH "WHICH IS AT BOSTON, THE 
SUCCORERS OF MANY 



PREFACE. 



The writer of this volume confesses that he finds 
the best nutriment of his spiritual life in John's Gospel 
and Epistles. I have not used the verb "confess" as a 
preface to an apology for having a favorite among in- 
spired authors, for I remember that Jesus Christ, my 
adorable Saviour, had His favorite apostle among the 
Twelve whom He had chosen. As He made no apology 
for His partiality, I will follow His example, and I will 
do so more gladly in view of the fact that His favorite 
and mine is the same person. I acknowledge that in thi3 
eighth decade of my life I have chosen the study of these 
Epistles because of their brevity and of the possibility of 
their completion by the same hand. I now exceedingly 
regret that I could not twenty-five years ago comply with 
the earnest request of Dr. William Nast, of blessed 
memory, to assist him in his projected exegesis of the 
New Testament, by taking John's Gospel as my part of 
his work. Perhaps it would have encouraged this ven- 
erable German scholar to complete the task which he so 
nobly began. It was with great pain that in the midst 



vi 



PREFACE. 



of work on the Old Testament I was constrained to de- 
cline an offer so agreeable to my inclinations. I have 
used the Revised Version, which embodies the advanced 
scholarship of onr age. Writing for English readers I 
have avoided the insertion of words in Hebrew, Greek 
and Latin. 

It would be useless to enumerate all the exigetes from 
whom I have borrowed ideas and sometimes expressions. 

I have had occasion to refer frequently to Bengel's 
Gnomon, Whedon's Commentary and Wesley's Notes. 
I have not so often consulted Alf ord's voluminous Greek 
Testament. He has lost the key to the First Epistle by his 
denial that it is aimed at the Docetic errors of Gnosti- 
cism. I have made an extensive use of the very val- 
uable work of Dr. A. Plummer in the Cambridge Bible 
for Schools and Colleges. Above all others I have de- 
rived help from the model commentary of Bishop West- 
cott, whose thoroughness in tracing out the use of a 
word or a form; in comparing phrases often held to be 
synonymous; in pointing out the emphatic word as indi- 
cated by the order in the Greek; and in estimating the 
force of different tenses of the same verb in regard to 
the contexts, is little short of a revolution in exegesis. I 
regard his lifelong work on John's epistles as a faultless 
example to all exegetes, of tireless patience in exhaustive 
scholarly research and exactness. 

Haupt, whom I have also consulted, is remarkable for 



PREFACE. 



vii 



divining from John's words his unexpressed thoughts. 
In this respect he might be truthfully called a mind- 
reader. But I have been cautious in quoting him, since 
there are attending the exercise of his peculiar gift 
tempting fields for a disporting imagination. 

It has been well said that the surest way to an earthly 
immortality is to link your name with God's eternal 
Word, which is destined to live forever on earth. But 
God is my witness that this is not the motive of the writ- 
ing of this book, but rather to elucidate the Holy Scrip- 
tures for the benefit of my fellow men. D. S. 



Milton, October 24, 1900. 



INTRODUCTION. 



1. LIFE OF ST. JOHN IN OUTLINE. 

The facts relating to this eminent apostle which are 
recorded in the New Testament are soon told. He was 
the son, apparently the youngest son, of Zebedee and 
Salome, the sister of the Virgin Mary, "the mother of 
the Lord." Hence he was a first cousin to Jesus, the 
Messiah. There is reason for the widely spread belief 
that he was the junior of the other apostles, and by rea- 
son of his near kinship, his youth and his natural enthu- 
siasm, his intensity of thought, of speech, of insight, and 
of life, he became the special favorite of our Lord Jesus. 
Like the other apostles, except Judas, the traitor, John 
was a Galilean. This fact has a moral value, inasmuch 
as it separated him from the political intrigues and de- 
moralizing speculations rife in Jerusalem. He retained 
the simple faith and stern heroism of earlier times. 
With his brother James he shared the ardor of the Gali- 
lean temperament fitly described by the epithet Boaner- 

ix 



X 



INTRODUCTION. 



ges, sons of thunder, which their Master early applied to 
them. From this we understand that they were very 
effective speakers, swift, startling and vehement in the 
utterance of the truth like fire shut up in their bones. 
John regards everything on its divine side. He sees all 
events, the past and the future, contributing to the mani- 
festation of the sons of God, the sole hope of the world. 
Of this he had himself been assured by ocular evidence 
and inward revelation of the Son of God, like that which 
thrust Paul into the Christian ministry. He could say: 
"We have seen and do testify." He produced convic- 
tion not by labored argument, but by confident affirma- 
tion. 

2. THE OLD AGE OF JOHN THE APOSTLE. 

After the ascension of Christ the history of the apos- 
tles whom He had trained is left in the utmost obscurity. 
Except James, who was early killed with the persecu- 
tors' sword in Jerusalem, we know not when, or where, 
or how any of the Eleven died. The Acts of the Apos- 
tles briefly speaks of them collectively in its first few 
chapters, then it drops all except Peter and John. Soon 
it drops the beloved apostle and describes Peter's career 
only. Then it takes up the biography of Paul and con- 
tinues it through the remaining fifteen chapters to his 
imprisonment, where the narrative abruptly and tanta- 
lizingly ends. Ask any ecclesiastical historian to desig- 



INTRODUCTION. 



xi 



nate the point where the records of the early church 
leave him to grope in Egyptian darkness, and he mil 
unhesitatingly put his finger on the period following the 
end of the Acts of the Apostles, of which Neander says 
that "we have no information, nor can the total want of 
sources for this part of church history be at all surpris- 
ing." Says Dean Farrar, "The facts of the corporate 
history of the early Christians, and even the closing de- 
tails in the biographies of their greatest teachers, are 
plunged in entire uncertainty." Of this period Kenan 
says: "Black darkness falls upon the scene; and a grim 
and brooding silence, like the silence of an impending 
storm, holds in hushed expectation of the 'day of the 
Lord' the awe-struck breathless church. No more books 
are written; no more messengers are sent; the very voice 
of tradition is still." We doubt the truth of the last 
clause. The voice of tradition was not still. It tried 
to fill the vacuum with its swarms of puerile conjectures 
and manifest falsehoods. It represents John at Kome 
reduced to the humble occupation of a fireman tending 
the furnace fire of a woman's bath-house, and on one oc- 
casion immersed in a caldron of boiling oil and handling 
deadly serpents without bodily harm; and Peter the 
apostle to the Jews for twenty-five years poaching in 
Paul's Gentile preserve in Kome, when there is not an 
atom of Scriptural proof, nor a particle of credible, con- 
temporaneous testimony to this statement to be found in 



xii 



INTRODUCTION. 



history, sacred or profane, during the first Christian cen- 
tury. (See Bibliotheca Sacra, Vols. XV and XVI, "Was 
Peter in Eome and Bishop of the Church?" for a nega- 
tive answer which cannot be controveted.) TVe should 
be glad to believe the touching and beautiful tradition 
of John's reclaiming for Christ a convert who had so far 
apostatized as to become the leader of a band of robbers, 
but the story lacks a historic basis, as does the story of 
his hasty exit from a bath, lest the structure should fall 
upon his head by reason of the presence of the here- 
siarch, Cerinthus. It was widely believed after his 
burial that he was not dead, but sleeping in his grave till 
Christ should come. Tradition alleged that "the dust 
was stirred by the breath of the saint." This vain tra- 
dition was not needed as a fulfilment of Christ's words, 
"If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" 
He did tarry among the living till Christ came. It is 
impossible for us to realize fully what was involved in 
the destruction of the Holy City for those who had been 
trained in Judaism. It was nothing else than the close 
of a divine drama, an end of the world. The old sanc- 
tuary, "the joy of the whole earth," was abandoned. 
Henceforth the Christian church was the sole appointed 
seat of the presence of God. When Jerusalem fell — an 
event most favorable to Christianity — Christ came, and 
with His coming came also the work of St. J ohn. Dur- 
ing the period described by John in the Apocalypse, the 



INTRODUCTION. 



xiii 



period of conflict and fear and shaking of nations — 
"things which must shortly come to pass" — before the 
last catastrophe, St. John had waited patiently, having 
doubtless fulfilled his filial office to the mother of the 
Lord in his own home in Galilee unto the end of her 
earthly sojourn. 

3. st. John's literary activity. 

His authorship is a striking characteristic of his old 
age. Sacred scholars now quite generally agree that his 
first book, the Apocalypse, was written early in the 
seventh decade of the first century, at about 64 to 67 
A. D., describing the events of the following few years 
ending with the destruction of the Holy City and the sub- 
version of the Jewish polity in A. D. 70. The style is that 
of one familiar with the Hebrew attempting to write 
Greek for the first time. There are many deviations from 
accurate Greek composition. This is one of the proofs 
that the Eevelation is St. John's first essay in the Greek 
language. 

In the tenth decade, at about 96 or 97 A. D., he wrote 
his Gospel, it is supposed, at the urgent solicitation of his 
hearers, to whom he had often rehearsed it in his preach- 
ing. His style after a residence of probably twenty 
years in the Greek-speaking city of Antioch is much 
improved. Though still using Hebrew idioms he writes 
with grammatical accuracy and simplicity. His Gospel 



xiv 



INTRODUCTION. 



is rather polemic than narrative. He begins by stating 
a proposition to be proven — the supreme divinity of 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Thus we have one dog- 
matic Gospel. 

His First Epistle was written probably in the same 
year, to meet the error of the denial of the real humanity 
of Christ through the prevalence of the Gnostic philoso- 
phy. Modern Biblical scholars, with the exception of 
Alf ord, now believe this to be the purpose of this Epistle, 
or treatise, as it might be styled. Eor a more extended 
account of this philosophy see the note on Gnosticism at 
the end of the comments on Chapter I. 

His Second Epistle, second in arrangement in the 
New Testament volume, not necessarily in the order of 
time, is enigmatic in its address. It may have been en- 
titled either "to an elect Lady" or "to the elect Kyria,"or 
"to Electa Kyria." The general tenor of the letter inclines 
us to believe that it was sent not to one believer, but to 
a community of saints, here metaphorically addressed as 
a Lady just as elsewhere the church is styled "the Bride 
of Christ." It is hortatory rather than doctrinal, and in 
John's style, and is filled with his idioms respecting love, 
the commandments, deceivers and antichrist, Paraclete, 
darkness, light, life, witness, world and Word. 

His Trtkd Epistle has the appearance of a brief, pri- 
vate and confidential note addressed to an individual in 
some local church, severely denouncing by name a sec- 



INTRODUCTION. 



XV 



ond individual and highly naming and highly commend- 
ing a third. We cannot think that John ever intended 
that a letter so filled with personalities should be pub- 
lished. But the Providence which presided over the 
formation of the Holy Scriptures has for some good ends 
permitted its incorporation into the Sacred Canon. 
These purposes may have been (1) the inculcation of 
respect, honor and love for preachers who "for His 
name's sake" proclaim saving and fundamental truths, 
and (2) a needful safeguard of the pastor against dis- 
couragement because some ambitious brother Longpurse 
has assumed to dictate who shall be received as members 
or workers, and who shall be excommunicated, and (3) 
the need of a general superintendent to commend the 
humiliated pastor, and to teach such an usurper better 
manners. 

4. THE PLACE WHERE THIS EPISTLE WAS WRITTEN. 

There is in the New Testament no hint of John's resi- 
dence in Ephesus, but there is ample indirect proof of 
this fact. Christianity from the beginning of its con- 
quest of the world entrenched itself in those great cen- 
tres of influence, the great cities of the Orient, Antioch, 
Alexandria, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Corinth and Eome. 
Paul found a small society of Christians in Ephesus, and 
by his years of labor greatly enlarged and strengthened 
it. The place was of sufficient importance to attract one 



xvi 



INTRODUCTION. 



of the Twelve to succeed the apostle to the Gentiles. 
The trade of the iEgean Sea was concentratedin its port. 
Since Patnios, the place of John's exile, is only a day's 
sail from Ephesus, "the metropolis of Asia/' it is quite 
probable that this city was the place of his abode both 
before and after his sojourn on that rugged island; and 
doubtless he was recalling the scenes he had looked upon 
in the Ephesian markets when he gave that gorgeous 
description of the merchandise of Babylon in Rev. xviii. 
12, 13, a of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and 
pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet; 
and all thyine wood, and every vessel of ivory, and of 
brass, and iron, and marble; and cinnamon, and spice, 
and incense, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine 
and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle and sheep; 
and merchandise of horses and chariots and slaves, and 
souls of men." The last two items intimate the terrible 
wickedness of the times, especially in great commercial 
cities. While no contemporary writer testifies to John's 
residence in Ephesus, there is testimony to this fact by a 
number of subsequent writers, such as Justin Martyr, 
probably within fifty years of John's death, Irenaeus, 
Polycrates, Polycarp and Apollonius. We will not mul- 
tiply witnesses to prove what few, if any, deny. 

The church in Ephesus in John's day must have been 
quite large, since it had enjoyed the labors of Apollos, 
Paul, Aquila and Priscilla, Trophimus, Timothy and 



INTRODUCTION, 



xvii 



the family of Onesiphorus. Paul left it well organized 
under presbyters, whom he afterwards addressed at 
Miletus. Such was the environment of John in his last 
days. For the splendor and magnificence of idolatry 
in Ephesus see our note on the last words of this 
Epistle, "Guard yourselves from idols." 

5. THE RELATION OF THE EPISTLES TO THE GOSPEL OF ST. 

JOHN. 

The relation of the First Epistle to the Fourth Gospel 
is that of an application to a sermon, or that of a com- 
ment to a history. The Epistle presupposes that the per- 
sons addressed possessed a knowledge of the Gospel com- 
municated either by John's voice or his pen. The Gos- 
pel is a summary of his sermons to audiences ignorant of 
the facts and truths of Christianity. The First Epistle 
is a summary of his exhortations to believers to practise 
the precepts of Christ stated in such a way as to guard 
them against the evils of religious error. There are nu- 
merous and manifest resemblances, both in the thought 
and the form, between this Epistle and the Gospel of 
John. There are also striking differences. The theme 
of the Gospel, clearly and concisely stated in the first 
verse, is the supreme divinity (doxa) of the Logos, who 
"was with God," hence distinct in personality, and who 
"was God," being identical with Him in nature. The 
burden of the Epistle is the real and perfect humanity 



XV111 



INTRODUCTION. 



(sarx) of Jesus Christ announced in its opening sentence, 
which appeals to three of the five senses, in proof that he 
was not a phantom, but a man composed of flesh, blood 
and bones, — a veritable man, the God-man. It has been 
well said that the proposition demonstrated in the evan- 
gel is "Jesus is the Christ," and that proved in the Let- 
ter is "the Christ is Jesus." In the latter case the apos- 
tle presses his argument from the divine to the human, 
from the spiritual and ideal to the historical, the natural 
position of an evangelist and historian ; in the former the 
writer argues from the human to the divine, from the 
historical to the ideal and spiritual, which is the natural 
position of the preacher. 

With respect to the doctrine of the last things there is 
this fundamental difference : "In the Gospel the doctrine 
of the 'coming' of the Lord (xxi. 22, xvi. 3) and of 'the 
last day' (vi. 40, 44) and of 'the judgment' (v. 28, 29), 
are touched upon generally. In the Epistle the 'mani- 
festation' of Christ (ii. 28) and His 'presence' stand out 
as clear facts in the history of the world. He comes, 
even as he came 'in flesh' (2 John 7); and 'antichrists' 
precede his coming (1 John ii. 18, 19)." (Bishop West- 
cott.) 

Still more full and distinct in the Epistle than in the 
Gospel is the doctrine of the atonement. This is in har- 
mony with the general law of the progress of doctrine in 
the ISTew Testament that doctrines which are in germ 



INTRODUCTION. 



xix 



form in the Gospels are fully developed in the Epistles 
of Paul and the other apostles. For an extended exhi- 
bition of the doctrine of atonement see concluding note 
to chapter fifth. 

Another difference exists in the fact that the Lord's 
words are in the First Epistle moulded by His disciple 
into aphorisms, their historic setting having entirely van- 
ished. The Epistle is generally direct, abstract and des- 
titute of rhetorical imagery. There is also what Bishop 
Westcott styles "a decisive difference in the atmosphere 
of the two books. The Epistle deals freely with the 
truths of the Gospel in direct conflict with the character- 
istic perils of his own time; in the Gospel he lives again 
in the presence of Christ and of the immediate enemies 
of Christ, while he brings out the universal significance 
of events and teachings not fully understood atthetime." 

The similarity of the Epistle and the Gospel and their 
dissimilarity also will be seen when we study a passage in 
each containing the same fundamental truth: "And this 
is life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true 
God, and him whom thou diclst send, even J esus Christ." 
(John xvii. 3.) Here eternal life is the progressive recog- 
nition of God through an increasing knowledge of His 
Son. The Gospel gives the historic revelation of God. 
But the Epistle goes further, "And we know that the 
Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, 
that we may know him that is true, and we are in him 



XX 



INTRODUCTION, 



that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the 
true God and eternal life." (1 John v. 20.) Here we 
have the revelation as it has been apprehended in the life 
of the individual believer and of the church through the 
vitalizing power of the great gift of the risen Christ, the 
Holy Spirit, first in regeneration and secondly in perf ect 
love. 

Nearly all the versions make a difference between the 
meaning of Paraclete in the Gospel and in the Epistle. 
John is the only Scriptural writer who uses this Greek 
word. It occurs four times in the Gospel and is trans- 
lated "Comforter," from a Latin word signifying 
strengthener. But the best Greek scholars insist that the 
form of the word indicates a passive meaning, "the near 
called one," or the one "called to" our aid. The word 
"advocate" from the Latin "ad," to, and "voco," to call, 
is the exact equivalent of Paraclete, from "para," to, and 
"kaleo," to call. "Advocate" is the rendering in 1 John 
ii. 1, as it also should be rendered in all places in the 
Gospel. 

The classical use of "paraclete" in this passive sense 
is beyond all dispute. If the term were uniformly 
translated "advocate" we would ever make prominent 
the beautiful and affecting idea that the Holy Spirit ad- 
vocates God's cause with us below, and the ascended 
Christ pleads our cause with God above- 



INTRODUCTION. 



xxi 



6. PURPOSE AND HISTORICAL SETTING. 

In the estimation of deeply spiritual minds the First 
Epistle of John holds the highest place in that series of 
inspired writings which constitute the Bible. In the 
order of divine revelations it is probably the last. It 
may very properly be regarded as the interpreter of the 
whole series. It not only awakens the highest hopes of 
the believer, but it also confirms and satisfies them by 
showing our privilege of fellowship with the choicest 
spirits on the earth and our cloudless and continuous 
communion with the Father and the Son by the Holy 
Spirit given to all who here and now unwaveringly trust 
in our risen Saviour and Lord. The Epistle furnishes a 
lofty ideal of that Christian society or brotherhood called 
the Church, and it insists that its present realization is a 
glorious possibility. If the love of God and man which 
flames throughout this book were burning brightly — not 
smouldering — in the heart of every professor of faith in 
Christ, all secular sodalities would lose their attraction, 
distintegrate and disappear before the superior magnet- 
ism of the Bride of Christ, the Church. 

While in all versions of the New Testament this prod- 
uct of John's pen is called an epistle, it has no character- 
istics of an epistle. It has no date, no place of writing, 
no address, no salutation, no subscription, no trace of the 
author except by inference and no hint of any special 
destination. Yet it is brimful and running over with 



xxii 



INTRODUCTION. 



personal feeling such as would characterize a large and 
warm heart of a retired, aged pastor writing a farewell, 
pastoral address to his beloved flock exposed to destruc- 
tive errors. It is commonly believed that this Epistle 
and the Fourth Gospel were written at the same time, or 
nearly the same, in the last decade of the first century, 
probably at Ephesus, after the destruction of Jerusalem. 
The tone of it is not dread of the hostility of the world, 
but of its seductions. The historical setting of this book 
must have been when the battles between the law and 
the gospel had already become ancient history. But 
the still more vital question was pressing for an answer — 
the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some took 
the advanced, liberalistic view of to-day, that our God- 
man had no valid claim to supreme divinity, that He was 
a mere man, while others admitting His Godhead, denied 
the reality of His humanity and pronounced Him a mere 
phantom, that He only seemed to be a man with a mate- 
rial organism. These were called the Docetce or seem- 
ers. Still another class, Cerinthus and his followers, 
supposed that Jesus had two human parents and was a 
common man till His baptism, when the divinity was 
united with Him in so loose a way that it left Him before 
He died. John living to see the time when both the 
divinity and the humanity of his Master were publicly 
denied, wrote the Fourth Gospel to meet the first error, 
and this pastoral address to counteract the second. To 



INTRODUCTION, 



xxiii 



protect the church against these deadly errors, John 
does not directly assail them by name, but he indirectly 
meets them by unfolding the truth respecting Christ's 
person and mission. He does not formally construct an 
argument, but rather announces the truths intuitively 
seen and felt. He repeats with emphasis that the Son of 
God came in the flesh. This is the key of this Epistle. 
John shows that the bottom drops out of Christianity if 
Christ's body was not real. The outcome would be a 
phantom Saviour, nailed to a sham cross, dying only a 
seeming death, and then rising from the dead only in 
appearance. 

~No wonder that John should declare that the denial 
of the Incarnate Son amounts to a denial of the Father. 

In modern times we have substantially the same errors 
to combat. Kealism in philosophy reduces Christianity 
to mere humanitarianism, while idealism, such as the so- 
called Christian Science, when applied to the incarna- 
tion, makes it a mere seeming. Thus the corner stone 
of the Christian evidences, the resurrection of Christ, is 
undermined, while the central Christian doctrine, the 
atonement, on which all the hopes of the penitent be- 
liever are built, evaporates in thin air, because there was 
no real body to suffer and die. In addition to these per- 
nicious errors which would subvert fundamentals, we in 
modern times must oppose a most deadly perversion of a 
passage in this very Epistle making the saintly John 



xxiv 



INTRODUCTION. 



teach the monstrous contradiction that the blood of Jesus 
Christ cleanses from all sin, but if any testifies to the 
experience of such a perfect riddance of sin, he deceives 
himself and the truth is not in him. Thus John, who 
writes this pastoral address, "that ye sin not," is made to 
plead for continuance in sin and to rate as deceived, if 
not deceivers, all teachers of the doctrine of entire sanc- 
tification in this life and all professors of its blessed ex- 
perience. 

To present a harmonious interpretation of the First 
Epistle of John is our purpose, in order that it may real- 
ize the aim of the beloved apostle, the promotion of 
Christian holiness on the earth. 

7. OUTLINE OF THE EPISTLE. 

It is exceedingly difficult to analyze the Epistle and 
discover the author's plan. Some scholars think that he 
had no clear and systematic arrangement of his ideas 
when he began to write. They assert that it is a an un- 
methodized effusion of the pious sentiments and reflec- 
tions of a prattling old man." Even so keen an intel- 
lect as Calvin's found it impossible to find any distinct 
lines of cleavage in what he regarded as a confused com- 
pound of doctrine and exhortation. But modern schol- 
ars, deeming this opinion derogatory to this great apos- 
tle, have set about the work of discovering the subtle 
links of thought which constitute divisions into orderly 



INTRODUCTION. 



XXV 



parts. They do not announce the result of their labors 
with much confidence, but admit that the transitions 
from one section of the subject to another, even in the 
main divisions, are very gradual, "like the changes in 
dissolving views." Few writers have been perfectly sat- 
isfied with the plan (of the Epistle) which they profess to 
have discovered; and still fewer have satisfied their read- 
ers. It is like finding exact boundaries between the con- 
stellations. But most students will agree that it is better 
to read the Epistle with some scheme which is tolerably 
correct than without the guidance of any. 

Einding a superior scheme already prepared, I have 
thought it best to borrow it, with the slight addition of 
the bracketed words, to indicate pre-Christian sins. 

Plan of Dr. A. Plummer in the Cambridge Bible for 
Schools and Colleges: 

1-4. Introduction. 

1. The subject-matter of the Gospel employed in the 

Epistle (i. 1-3). 

2. The purpose of the Epistle (i. 4) . 

i. 5-ii. 28. God is Light. 

a. i. 5-ii. 11. Wbat Walking in tbe Xfgbt involves : tbe 
Gonoltion ano Conouct of tbe JBeUever. 

1. Fellowship with God and with the Brethren (i. 5-7) 

2. Consciousness and confession of sin [committed htm 

fore forgiveness] (i. 8-10). 

3. Obedience to God by Imitation of Christ (ii. 1-6). 

4. Love of the Brethren (ii. 7-11). 



xxvi 



INTRODUCTION. 



b. ii. 12-28. TDdbat 'Malkmg in tbe Xigbt excludes : tbe 

ftbings anD persons to be avotoeo. 

1. Three-fold Statement of Reasons for Writing (ii. 

12-14). 

2. Things to be avoided: the World and its Ways 

(ii. 15-17). 

3. Persons to be avoided : Antichrists (ii. 18-26). 

4. [Transitional.] The Place of Safety : Christ (ii. 27, 28) 

ii. 29-v. 12. God is Love. 

c. ii. 29-iii. 24. abe i£\noence of Sonsbtp: 2>eeDs ot 

TRtgbteousness before 0oD. 

1. The Children of God and the Children of the Devil 

(ii. 29-iii. 12). 

2. Love and Hate: Life and Death (iii. 13-24). 

d. iv. l-v. 12. £be Sources of Sonsbip : possession of 

tbe Spirit as sbown bs Confession ot 
tbe flncarnatiom 

1. The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error (iv. 1-6). 

2. Love is the Mark of the Children of Him who is 

• Love (iv. 7-21). 

3. Faith is the Source of Love, the Victory over the 

World, and the Possession of Life (v. 1-12). 

v. 13-21. Conclusion. 

1. Intercessory Love the Fruit of Faith (v. 13-17). 

2. The Sum of the Christian's Knowledge (v. 18-20). 

3. Final Injunction (v. 21). 

As a key to this plan we are to consider that the con- 
fession and conscious pardon of sin and obedience to God 
are necessary to fellowship with God and love to Him 
and to the brethren which excludes love of the world. 



INTRODUCTION. 



xxvii 



This is passing away, as is shown by the appearance of 
antichrists. Abiding in Christ insures against passing 
away. The words "begotten of God" suggest the son- 
ship of believers, implying mntnal love, and the in- 
dwelling of Christ to which the spirit testifies. The 
mention of spirit suggests that there are bad spirits 
which must be distinguished from the good. The topic 
of mutual love suggests faith as its original source, espe- 
cially as shown in intercessory prayer. The whole closes 
with a summary of the knowledge on which the ethics of 
the Epistle is based and with a caveat against idolatry. 

8. RHETORICAL STYLE. 

The most marked feature of the style is the constant 
occurrence of moral and spiritual antitheses, each 
thought has its opposite, each affirmative its negative; 
light and darkness, life and death, love and hate, truth 
and falsehood, children of God and children of the 
devil, sin unto death and sin not unto death, the spirit 
of truth and the spirit of error, love of the Father and 
love of the world. 

9. THEOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL VALUE. 

The Epistle is not a designed compendium of sys- 
tematic theology or handbook of Christian doctrine for 
catechetical training, being written not for the instruc- 
tion of the ignorant, but expressly for those who "know 



XXV111 



INTRODUCTION. 



the truth." Yet "in no other book in the Bible are so 
many cardinal doctrines touched with so firm a hand." 
No other book gives a formal definition of sin, and none 
so often alludes to the atonement in the blood of Christ 
presented in its various phases, no other so magnifies love 
and identifies it with the divine essence, and no other so 
distinctly teaches Christian perfection attainable by all 
believers who here and now claim their full heritage in 
Christ, perfect love shed abroad in the heart by the Holy 
Spirit. John writes as if conscious that he is writing 
the last statement of Christian truth in epistolary form, 
just as he had written the last of the Gospels. "Each 
point is laid before us with the awe-inspiring solemnity 
of one who writes under the profound conviction that 'it 
is the last hour.' JSTone but an apostle, perhaps none 
but the last surviving apostle, could have such magis- 
terial authority in the utterance of Christian truth. 
Every sentence seems to tell of the conscious authority 
and resistless, though unexerted, strength of one who has 
'seen, and heard, and handled the Eternal Word, and 
who knows that his witness is true.' " 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY NOTE. 

The words which open this First Epistle of St. John — 
an appeal to three of the five senses in proof of the reality 
of Christ's body — show that it turns upon the Person of 
the Son of God incarnate. But why was the reality of 
Christ's humanity so stoutly denied? It was necessary 
in order to meet the demands of the false philosophy 
which some Christians had adopted in order to harmonize 
that doctrine with the sinlessness of the man Jesus 
Christ. Dualism asserts the existence of two gods or 
two original principles, one good and the other evil, one 
spirit and the other matter; spirit being perfectly holy, 
and matter incorrigibly evil, only evil and that contin- 
ually and forever. Spirit can never become unholy be- 
cause there can be no real contact, no mixture with mat- 
ter. The spirits of sensual, gluttonous, licentious and 
drunken men are perfectly free from moral evil which 
can exist in the body only. Hence there is no need of 
an atonement for the real self, the spirit in man. The 



2 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES, 



moral leprosy touched only the body, the envelope of the 
spirit. A golden jewel may be encompassed for years 
in the filth of a pigsty without the least defilement from 
its environment. It would still be pure gold. This was 
the favorite illustration of this philosophy. The moral 
effect of such teaching may be easily imagined when pro- 
fessing Christians could consort with harlots and claim 
fellowship with God, have their bodies filled with the 
spirit of wine and their souls filled with the Spirit Di- 
vine. The ethics of the Gospel would have been totally 
subverted if this pernicious teaching had prevailed. 
John realized the greatness of the impending ruin and 
assailed it in this pastoral address. 

When the heresy arose that sin exists only in the ma- 
terial organism, and the spirit which acts through it is 
perfectly pure and always must be, the orthodox disci- 
ples under the leadership of John opposed this false doc- 
trine imported from the pagan Orient. One of their 
arguments was that it denied the sinlessness of Jesus 
Christ who had a material body. His sinfulness must 
follow if matter is always evil. The Dualists, who are 
also called Gnostics, evaded this necessary inference by 
denying the reality of Christ's body. They boldly as- 
serted that he was a phantom, like the various theopha- 
nies, or appearances of God, in human form in the Old 
Testament. In other words, the incarnation was a sham. 
This removes the corner stone of Christian theology, 



I JOHN I. 3 
1. That which was from the beginning, that which we have 



Christ's mediatorship, for He was in no sense human; 
His atonement in His own blood was an illusion, since He 
had only the appearance of death; and His resurrection 
must be unreal, if He died only in appearance. Hence 
the whole controversy of John with the Dualists was cen- 
tred in the question, was the body of Jesus real flesh 
and bones? This accounts for the emphasis John so 
often in this Epistle puts upon believing on "Christ come 
in the flesh." This accounts for the very first words 
of the Epistle which contain the theme which J ohn pro- 
poses to amplify, namely, the real humanity of his di- 
vine Master, just as he states the proposition to be proved 
by his Gospel, namely, the Supreme Divinity of the Son 
of God, the Logos, who was with God, and thus distinct 
in personality, and who was God, being one in nature. 
We have one dogmatic Gospel and one polemic Epistle, 
both by the same author, and both announcing their sub- 
ject in the first sentence of their treatises. 

To put the purpose of each in an epigrammatic form 
the theme of the Gospel is, Jesus is the Christ; i. e., very- 
God; the theme of the Epistle is, the Christ is Jesus; i. e., 
very Man. 

1. The subject-matter of the Gospel employed in the 

Epistle (i. 1-3). 

2. The purpose of the Epistle (i. 4). 

1. "From the beginning." As in John i. 1, before 



4 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we be- 
held, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life 

the world was. But in ii. 7, 13, 14, iii. 11, it signifies 
from the commencement of preaching the Gospel. 

The first verse of the Epistle declares the reality of 
Christ's body, as attested by all the special senses which 
in the nature of the case can be applied. Taste and 
smell are not related to this demonstration. But the 
eyes, the ears and the hands are summoned as witnesses 
in proof that the important witness is emphasized by the 
use of two verbs, that which we have seen with our eyes 
and continuously, calmly and intently "contemplated" 
or surveyed. The phrase "with our eyes" is not redun- 
dant, for it accentuates the direct, outward experience 
of a matter so marvellous in itself and in its basal relation 
to vital Christian truths. It was no mere trance or 
vision of the soul alone. "Your eyes have seen" is the 
formula for assured certitude in Deut. iii. 21, xi. 7, 
xxi. 7. 

"Our hands handled." Referring to the challenge of 
Christ, after His resurrection, in J ohn xx. 27, and Luke 
xxiv. 39. "Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not 
flesh and bones, as ye see me have." This is the only in- 
timation of the resurrection of J esus found in this Epis- 
tle. Handling marks the solid ground of the apostolic 
knowledge, says Theophylact, "we have not given our 
assent to a mere momentary chance vision," 



I JOHN I. 5 
2. (and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear 



"The Word of life." The Logos (John i. 1), the 
whole Gospel revelation of God to man in the Person 
and teaching of His Son in the flesh. The sum of God's 
message is that life, spiritual and eternal, is in His Son 
and in all who perseveringly keep their union with Him 
by faith. See v. 13. This life is not bare existence, as 
the annihilationists contend. It is not mere being, but 
well-being, fellowship with God and with man in God, 
through faith in Jesus Christ the embodied ideal of life 
made visible. Compare 1 John v. 11, 12, 20; Kom. v. 
10, vi. 23; 2 Cor. iv. 10; Col. iii. 4; 2 Tim. i. 1. "I am 
the resurrection and the life," John xi. 25. See also 
John vi. 57, xiv. 6, 19. But the strongest self-assertion 
of Christ that He is not only the bearer of life, but its in- 
dependent source, is found in John v. 26, "For as the 
Father hath life in Himself, even so gave He to the Son 
also to have life in Himself." As having anything in 
one's self precludes the causality of another, we are jus- 
tified in the declaration that the Son is not merely the 
channel of life, but its independent, coordinate source. 
Pie is the self-dependent principle of a creative spiritual 
life. Life is Christ's immanent spiritual possession. 

2. "Was manifested." The Son of God in three ways 
is made known as "the life," as His first coming was 
manifested, 1 John i. 2-9; after His resurrection, when 



6 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was 
with the Father, and was manifested unto us) ; 

He breathed on His disciples and imparted the Holy 
Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life (John xx. 22); and at 
His second coming (1 John ii. 28), when as the judge 
He will reward the righteous with eternal life. (Matt, 
xxv. 46.) 

"We have seen." Personal experience. "Bear wit- 
ness." Eesponsible affirmation. 

"And declare." Authoritative and dogmatic an- 
nouncement. This is the logical order in which the Gos- 
pel of Christ will conquer the world. 

"The eternal life." This special gift of Christ to be- 
lievers — eternal felicity — is not to be confounded with 
an unending continuance in Heb. vii. 16. "Eternal 
life," found in the Old Testament only once (Dan. xii. 
2), is eminently a New Testament phrase, occurring 
forty-three times. 

"The Lather." This simple title is always used with 
reference to the Son. "The simplest conception of God 
having a moral character, essentially love, includes an 
object loved from eternity, before the creation of any 
being. The person loved — for the proper object of love 
is a person — not being a creature must be divine. Hence 
the title, "the Father," on the lips of Him who shared 
God's glory and love before the world was implies more 
than one person in the unity of the divine nature. 



I JOHN L 



3. that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, 
that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship 
i3 with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ: 

4. and these things we write, that our joy may he fulfilled. 



3. "We announce unto you also." The reception of 
a revelation from God, outward in the form of a book, or 
inward in a joyful experience of love revealed and per- 
fect, lays us under the obligation to publish it as widely 
as possible. There is no copyright or patent right to the 
blessedness of the Gospel. It is diffusive in its nature. 
It will not abide with him who seeks its exclusive pos- 
session. It evaporates if monopolized. 

"Fellowship." The conscious realization of harmony 
with God and of communion with Him and conformity 
to His moral attributes. What the twelve apostles 
gained in outward intercourse with Christ, John desires 
that we may enjoy to the uttermost, by an inward and 
spiritual apprehension of the invisible and glorified 
Saviour. 

"With the Father and the Son." Such coordination 
implies sameness of essence in these two Persons. More- 
over fellowship with the Father is involved in fellowship 
with the Son. "He that hath the Son hath the Father." 

4. "That our joy may be full." The Revision and 
most of the critics read "our joy." No believer's joy is 
complete till he has declared to others his faith in Christ. 
Mute Christians have imperfect joy. John gives two 



8 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

5. And this is the message which we have heard from him, and 



recipes for fulness of joy. The first is, "Ask and ye shall 
receive" (John xvi. 24), and the second is the confession 
of Christ's power to save. Neither Christ nor John 
taught the popular modern doctrine of indifference to 
feelings — that we must tie down the safety-valve of our 
sensibilities and choke down our hallelujahs. 

i. 5-ii. 28. God is Light. 

a. i. 5-ii. 11. mhat m*MnQ in tbe %iQht involves : tbe 
Condition anD Conouct of tbe JBeliever. 

1. Fellowship with God and with the Brethren (i. 5-7). 

2. Consciousness and confession of sin [committed be- 

fore forgiveness] (i. 8-10). 

3. Obedience to God by Imitation of Christ (ii. 1-6). 

4. Love of the Brethren (ii. 7-11). 

5. "This is the message." The revelation of God's 
moral character, which must be known before we can be 
assimilated to its beauty and purity. Harmony must 
rest on a mutual knowledge and a moral likeness 
and sympathy. This constitutes true spiritual fellow- 
ship. The incarnation brings God to the knowledge of 
men. The work of the Spirit in the believer conforms 
him to the image of God revealed in Christ. 

"God is light." Absolutely pure and self-communi- 
cating from His very nature, like the sun in the heavens. 
The holiness of God and the implied obligation of men 
to be like Him is the underlying truth of the Gospel mes- 



I JOHN I. 9 

announce unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at 
all. 



sage, and the theme of the preacher. No moral evil is 
in Him. Here in the words "light" and "darkness" we 
have a strong proof that John is opposing Zoroastrian 
dualism which identified light and spirit with moral 
goodness, and darkness and matter with moral evil, both 
principles being self-existent and from eternity. The 
announcement of God's character is not a discovery of 
human genius, but a personal revelation. Only in this 
way can man know God. The reception of this revela- 
tion requires faith, without which man is an agnostic, 
without God, or, as Paul says, "atheos, an atheist in the 
world." This atheism, under the full light of the New 
Testament, has not an intellectual, but a moral cause. 
Against the requirement to become like God the de- 
praved will rebels. This voluntary moral element in un- 
belief renders it culpable. Every revelation of God's 
nature enjoins a duty. "God is spirit," therefore we 
must worship Him in spirit. "God is love," therefore we 
must have love as a proof that we are His children, i. e., 
to show that we are facsimiles of God. "God is light," 
therefore we must walk in the light or be ensphered in 
holiness. But there is a great temptation to profess a 
likeness to God when there is no such similarity to his 
moral character. This temptation takes on a three-fold 



10 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



form: (1.) To say we have fellowship with the Light 
and walk in darkness, or sin. (2.) To say, "We have 
no sin," no guilt needing atonement. (3.) To say we 
have not sinned, making God a liar and evincing that 
His truth is not in us. In these three cases John con- 
siders three classes of spurious professors of Christianity. 
Says Bishop Westcott, "In doing this he unites himself 
with those whom he addresses; and recognizes the fact 
that he no less than his fellow-Christians has to guard 
against the temptations to which the three types of false 
doctrine correspond." The words quoted afford no 
foundation to the grave error of Dean Alford, who, be- 
because John says, "if we," says, "This state of needing 
cleansing from all present sin is veritably that of all of 
us; and that our recognition and confession of it is the 
very essential of walking in the light." But if such a 
genuine case of confession followed by walking in the 
light should occur, and the person thus walking in the 
light should declare this fact for the benefit of those 
stumbling in the dark, our logical dean must insist that 
this victorious soul is deceived and the truth is not in 
him. He must also aver that the saintly John, while 
penning these words, could not truthfully say that he 
was walking in the light and that he had no present guilt. 
That exegesis of "we," in these three hypothetical sen- 
tences, which declares that it refers not to false pro- 
fessors but to real Christians living at their spiritual 



I JOHN I. 



I I 



6. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in the 
darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: 



climax in this world, makes John the most self-contra- 
dictory writer to be found in the whole range of secular 
and sacred literature. For he declares the purpose of 
his writing to be "that ye sin not" once (aorist tense), 
and "that he that is born of God does not sin." Then he 
is made to say that all who obey God's prohibition and 
by grace abstain from sin and say so, should be branded 
as deluded or lying, or both duped and duping. But 
we have not finished the chapter of contradictions in- 
volved in the erroneous interpretation of "we." 

6. "Walk in darkness." Ensphere ourselves in dark- 
ness or sin by our own choice. Such persons seek to hide 
those acts which their consciences condemn from them- 
selves, from their fellow men and from God. (See 
John iii. 19, 20.) Religious fanatics in all ages have 
endeavored to combine loose morals with the possession 
of true Christian faith. It seems that John found such 
persons among the Gnostics in the church at Ephesus. 
He says that they lie and do not the truth. They affirm 
what they know to be positively false when they profess 
fellowship with the holy God and are wilfully choosing 
darkness and sin. (See James iii. 14.) Such a choice is 
fatal to fellowship with God. 



12 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



7. but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have 
fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son 
cleanseth us from all sin. 



7. "Walk in the light." By believing on Him who 
is the light we become "sons of light" and "partakers of 
the inheritance of the saints in light," having become 
ourselves "light in the Lord." (John xii. 36; Luke 
xvi. 8; Eph. v. 8; Col. i. 12; 1 Thess. v. 5.) This choice 
of light as the sphere of life is a state of justification. 
They who are in this state and they only are candidates 
for perfect cleansing from all sin. "This," says Haupt, 
"must not be understood of forgiveness of sins past, but 
of sanctification," i. e., initial sanctification in the new 
birth. To say that this cleansing is a judicial clearance 
from the guilt of sin, is to deny that God "justifies the 
ungodly" and to set up rectitude of previous life as the 
condition of pardon as the Roman Catholic Church 
teaches. On this ground no sinner can be forgiven. 
Good works instead of trust in Christ cannot save, but 
good works as the fruit of faith are well pleasing to God. 
The present tense "cleanesth" here denotes continuous- 
ness, not on one individual, but on the human family, one 
after another being wholly purified, as in Rom. iii. 24, 
one after another is instantaneously justified. When 
one leper is cleansed as in Matt. viii. 3, the aorist tense 
jslused, but when many in succession are to be cleansed 
as in Matt. x. 8, the present tense is used. 



I JOHN I. 



13 



8. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the 
truth is not in us. 

8. "If we say we have no sin." "Because," said the 
Gnostics, "sin never denies the soul but the body only, 
and hence we need no cleansing, having in our spirits 
no sin to be cleansed from." Bengel, Bishop 
B. F. Westcott, and others have noted that the phrase, 
"to have sin," is found only in John's writings (John ix. 
41, xv. 22, 24, xix. 11), and that it expresses guilt. "To 
have sin" is distinguished from "to sin" as the sinful 
principle is distinguished from the sinful act in itself. 
It includes the idea of "personal guilt." If the pronoun 
"we," as many affirm, in the conditional clause, "if we 
say we have no sin," means all genuine Christians in- 
cluding the author of this Epistle, we must impeach the 
truthfulness of Paul when he declares respecting the 
justified soul, "There is therefore now no condemna- 
tion;" for condemnation is inseparable from "guilt" 
involved in John's idiomatic phrase "to have sin." "We 
must impeach John as well as Paul, for he says, the 
blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. If guilt 
still remains for future ineffectual cleansing till physical 
death, it follows that John's words are untrue so far as 
this present life is concerned, and there is no deliverance 
from guilt in this world, and the only holy persons on 
earth are in the graveyard. We must also impeach 
truth, the heavenly maiden. "The truth shall make you 



14 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



free" from guilt and its penalty. And finally we must 
either put some new interpretation upon the words of 
the infallible Teacher himself, "If the Son therefore 
shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed," from the 
guilt of sin and the love of sin, or we must say that they 
have no relation to man's deepest present need. Such 
are some of the irresistible inferences from the interpre- 
tation of "we" as including all Christians in their pres- 
ent character after grace has done its best to purify 
them. . To whom does John refer? To the dualists or 
agnostics in the church who imagined that their spirits 
were untouched of sin which inheres in matter only and 
cannot stain the soul. It belongs to the body and will 
perish with the body in the grave. These people were 
indulging in the grossest sensual sins — gluttony, drunk- 
enness, sodomy, fornication and adultery — and were pro- 
fessing to walk in the light, to have fellowship with the 
holy God, to have no guilt upon their souls and hence no 
need of the blood of Christ. John in defence of the 
truth deals faithfully with these men either deluded by 
their false philosophy or downright liars wilfully ma- 
ligning the Gospel. Many religious teachers who dis- 
card the Gnostic philosophy as a system retain its 
essence in the idea that there is impurity in the body 
which divine power cannot expel without the aid of 
death. Hence they oppose the doctrine of entire sancti- 
fication in this life as rank fanaticism, forgetful of the 



I JOHN I. 



15 



9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive 
us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

scripture that "where sin abounded grace did much more 
abound" and "that ye may know the exceeding greatness 
of his power to usward who believe." (See notes on 
verses 5, 6, 7, and concluding note 5, at the end of 
Chapter I, and Chapter II, concluding note.) 

9. "Confess our sins." To God and to men when the 
sins have been in public, and to individuals when 
they have been wronged by our evil deeds. It is not nec- 
essary to confess publicly grossly shameful acts. Con- 
fession must be attended by an eternal abandonment of 
sin. Eestitution when it is possible characterizes 
genuine confession. Confession implies repentance, a 
word not found in this Epistle nor in the Fourth Gospel. 
For this reason some teach that it is not required but 
faith only. But evangelical faith is possible only for a 
truly penitent and contrite soul. 

"He is faithful." Not fickle, capricious and arbitrary, 
but immutable in the principles of his moral govern- 
ment. He can always be depended upon. His word is 
as good as his oath. 

"And righteous to forgive us our sins." To ren- 
der what is due from one to another is the essence of 
righteousness. Under the atonement it is due to the 
Son of God that his Father should forgive all who sue 
for pardon in His name. It is true that mercy is at the 



1 6 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

10. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and 
his word is not in us. 



bottom of the atonement, so that the righteousness of 
God in forgiveness is removed but a step from mercy. 

"And cleanse from all unrighteousness." The char- 
acter is purified after the past sins have been forgiven, 
as a definite momentary act in the mind of God. The 
cleansing in its completion is also a definite work instan- 
taneously wrought by the Holy Spirit in the believer. 
It is to be noted that both "forgive" and "cleanse" are 
in that tense which denotes not a continuous, but a de- 
cisive, single act. Says Alford, "In verse 9 'to cleanse 
us from all unrighteousness' is plainly distinguished from 
'to forgive us our sins;' distinguished as a further proc- 
ess; as, in a word, sanctification, distinct from justifica- 
tion. The two verbs are aorists, because the purpose of 
the faithfulness and justice of God is to do each as one 
great complex act — to justify and to sanctify wholly and 
entirely." He says, "to do," not both, but "each" as one 
great act. This is what the Wesleys discovered in 1737 
"that men are justified before they are sanctified." 
Again, justification is a work done for us, and entire 
cleansing is a work wrought in us. 

10. "If we say we have not sinned." This verse 
elucidates verse 8, showing that sins before the new birth 
are spoken of in both passages and not the daily sins of 



I JOHN I. 



17 



believers, if such a phrase is not a self-contradiction. 
The Gnostic professed Christians absolutely denied the 
fact of past sin. Hence, if they denied past sinful acts, 
they could deny that they had sin. To have no sin 
refers to a sinful state. The whole context shows that 
both these verses described refer to sins before the expe- 
rience of regeneration or to those who had in heart so 
far backslidden as to lose their sonship to God by ceas- 
ing to bear His moral likeness. 

"We make him a liar." It is manifest that John does 
not include himself in this word "we," but that he means 
"any one" or "he who." John uses the editorial "we," 
as James does in James iii. 1-3, 9, wherein he does not 
mean that he personally is guilty of moral "offences," nor 
that he is a horse trainer, nor that he blesses God and at 
the same time curses men, nor that he should "receive the 
greater condemnation." 

"His word is not in us." John and faithful Christians 
are not included in "us." What John does mean is that 
God's word is not in any man who makes him a liar by 
denying that he never did sin, since God has said that 
"all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." 

CONCLUDING NOTES. 

3. The Fatherhood of God and the sonship of men. 
In verse 2 God is spoken of as "the Father." (1.) The 
Old Testament conception of Fatherhood is national. 



1 8 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



"Israel is my son, even my first born." (Ex. iv. 22, 23.) 
The relationship is still national, not personal, when God 
addresses the Hebrew king, the representative head of 
the nation, thus: "Thou art my son, this day (of solemn 
consecration) I have begotten thee." (Ps. ii. 7.) The 
individual Israelite did not dare to call himself a son of 
God. The Jews were shocked at what they deemed 
blasphemy when Jesus called himself the Son of God, and 
they took up stones to stone him. (2.) The Gentile idea 
of sonship is purely physical. Homer calls Zeus or 
Jupiter, "father of gods and men." To this physical 
conception Paul alludes on Mars Hill when he quotes a 
Greek poet as saying, "For we are also his offspring." 
(3.) But in the Gospels and Epistles the conception 
of sonship is spiritual and personal, being limited to 
those only who have been born from above, born of the 
Spirit. To such has the Son of God given the right, the 
privilege, the prerogative "to become the sons of God, 
even to them that believe on his name." (John i. 12.) 
Spiritual sonship relates to confidence, obedience, love, 
holiness and a predominant similarity of moral char- 
acter, hating what He hates and loving what He loves. 
There is nothing saving in either national or physical 
sonship. It must be personal and spiritual: "Ye must 
be born again." The denial of this is the taproot of 
modern liberalism, which rejects those Scriptures which 
teach that the wicked are children of the devil. 



I JOHN I. 



19 



(Matt. xiii. 38; John viii. 44; Acts xiii. 10; 1 John iii. 

10. ) 

2. "The blood of Jesus Christ" "brings about that 
real sinlessness which is essential to union with God" 
(Bishop Westcott), who also says "the question is not of 
justification, but of sanctification." As ritual purity was 
required of all who would approach to God under the 
old covenant, so moral cleanness of conscience through 
the blood of Christ is required of all who would serve 
the living God in New Testament times. (Eph. v. 26, 
27; Tit.ii.14-; Heb. ix. 13, 14, 22-24.) Two distinct ideas 
were included in the sacrifice of a victim on the Jewish 
altar, the death of the animal, and the liberation of the 
life so as to become available for the offerer. Thus the 
blood of Christ represents His life as rendered in free 
self-sacrifice to God for men, and also as brought into 
fellowship with God after being set free by death. The 
blood of Christ is, as shed, the life of Christ given for all 
men, but as applied, it becomes the life of those only 
who by believing on Him are incorporated "in Christ." 
Participation in His blood is sharing His life. (John vi. 
53-56.) The following texts have predominant refer- 
ence to justification: Acts xx. 28; Eom. v. 9; Eph. i. 7, 

11. 13; Col. i. 20; Heb. ix. 14, x. 19, xii. 24; 1 Pet. i. 2, 
18. The two elements, Christ's death, the blood shed, 
and Christ's life set free, the blood offered, are clearly 
indicated in the double cure, in verse 9. God is faithful 



20 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us 
from all unrighteousness, i. e., to make holy and keep 
holy. 

3. "Self -deception." Says Haupt: "The word 'de- 
ceive' used by John in verse 8 occurs in no other docu- 
ment of the New Testament so often as in the Apoc- 
alypse. But in all the passages it is employed with a 
very definitely stamped meaning, never for mere error 
with express limitations as such, but always for funda- 
mental departure from the truth. It occurs concerning 
the artifices of Satan, of antichrist, of the beast, and 
once of the false teachers in Thyatira (Eev. ii. 20), 
whose work, however, is expressly marked by its signs 
as fundamental deception." It is employed in the 
same sense when the natural, unregenerate man de- 
clares, under the hallucination of Gnostic error, that he 
has no sin to be washed away and no need of the atone- 
ment in the blood of the Son of God. 

Haupt calls attention to the correspondence of verse 8 
with verse 6 and verse 9 with verse 7. "If the cleansing 
from sin is an essential of our walking in light, so the 
denial of its necessity is a token of being in darkness." 
Dark and desperate, indeed, must be the condition of 
that hardened sinner who, under the delusion of false 
philosophy, can declare that he has no consciousness of 
sin. 

4. "Gnosticism." Its name is Grecian (gnosis), but 



I JOHN I. 



21 



its origin is Asiatic. It is difficult to define this heresy. 
It is a conglomerate. Arising in the East, it rolled west- 
ward, incorporating into itself both Hebrew and Gre- 
cian elements. It is not a proper philosophy, a patient 
collection and study of facts. It ignores facts when, 
after the manner of all the Greek philosophies, it as- 
sumes a theory by an effort of the imagination and in a 
'priori style arrives at fanciful conclusions, instead of 
patiently accumulating and studying facts and reasoning 
backward a posteriori to the fundamental principles. 
"While professing to have no hostility to the 
Gospel, Gnosticism proved one of the subtlest 
and most dangerous enemies which it has ever 
encountered. On the plea of interpreting Chris- 
tian doctrines from a higher standpoint, it really 
disintegrated and demolished them; in explaining 
them, it explained them away. With the promise of 
giving the Gospel a broader and more catholic basis, it 
cut away the very foundations on which it rested — the 
reality of sin, and the reality of redemption." It is a 
series of imaginative speculations respecting the origin 
of the universe and its relation to the Supreme Being. 
Its idea of the sinfulness of man's physical organism still 
clings to a large section of Protestantism and is the doc- 
trinal ground of their hostility to perfect holiness as a 
present experience. In addition to the utter and incu- 
rable evil of the material universe, the second element 



22 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN : S EPISTLES. 



of Gnosticism was esoteric knowledge. This was re- 
garded as the main thing, and indeed, the only 
requisite to Christianity of the highest type. 
Hence the advocates of this error felt ranch 
flattered by the name, Gnostic, a knowing one, 
as some modern sceptics are pleased to style 
themselves Agnostics, ignoramuses. Their pride 
of knowledge was exceedingly offensive, making them 
supercilious and contemptuous toward the unlearned 
mass of believers in Christ within the reach of whose 
humble intellectual powers were the facts, truths and 
moral precepts of his Gospel. This explains Paul's dec- 
laration that "knowledge puffeth up/' for even as early 
as his day the Gnostic microbe was in the very air of 
Palestine and Asia Minor. In the estimation of these 
brain worshippers spiritual excellence did not consist in 
a holy life, but in being initiated into the mysteries of 
this esoteric knowledge and in belonging to the high 
caste of intellects who "knew the depths" and could say 
in a self-gratulatory style, "This is profound." They 
not only placed knowledge above virtue, but they knew 
that the moral code which ordinary believers understood 
] iter ally was to be so transcendentally and vaguely in- 
terpreted as to mean little or nothing. They insisted 
that the benefits of revelation were the exclusive priv- 
ilege of a select band of philosophers, because they alone 
had the key to the true meaning of the Scriptures. J ohn 



I JOHN I. 



2j 



was in strong sympathy with the common people whom, 
in his old age, he called "my little children." It was his 
love for them that prompted the epithets liar, deceiver 
and children of the devil when speaking of this unnamed 
and arrogant set of disturbers and corrupters of the 
church of Christ. 

The moral effects of this doctrine were indeed de- 
plorable. Sin existed only in the body while the soul 
was perfectly holy, hence all kinds of sin could be com- 
mitted with impunity. The golden jewel in the dung- 
hill was not denied. Thus was it with the soul of the 
glutton, the drunkard, and the adulterer. Xone of these 
needed cleansing, for the spirit, the real personality, was 
sinless. 

» 5. "The law of non-contradiction." This is one of 
the fixed and cardinal rules of interpretation. The 
words of an author must be so explained as not to make 
him contradict himself in the same letter, the same page, 
the same paragraph. Some understand John to say that 
every Christian has sin in the sense of guilt in verse 8. 
But this contradicts: (1.) The preceding sentence, the 
blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth from all sin. If he 
has sin he is not cleansed from it. If he is cleansed from 
sin and gives Christ the glory by declaring his deliver- 
ance he deceives himself and the truth is not in him. 
An infallible cure for pulmonary disease is advertised. 
If the healed consumptive testifies to his cure, do not 



24 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



believe him for lie is a liar. This is a jumble of contra- 
dictions into which this erroneous interpretation leads. 

(2.) It contradicts the design of this Epistle — "that 
ye sin not." If divine grace is unable to lift a soul out 
of the miry pit of sin, and keep him out, by establishing 
his goings farther and farther away from this bottomless 
quagmire, why does a man wise enough to be one of the 
twelve apostles deliberately sit down to perform an im- 
possibility? 

(3.) It contradicts the whole tenor of this Epistle as 
found in numerous declarations scattered from begin- 
ning to end. In verse 9 we are cheered by the assurance 
of the double cure, "forgiveness of sins and cleansing 
from all unrighteousness." 

In ii. 3, 5 there is implied the possibility of keeping 
continuously God's commands which exclude every sin 
and introduce us into the state in which love toward God 
is perfected. This is inconsistent with sin. John in 
ii. 14 of his First Epistle writes to the young men be- 
cause the Word of God abides in them and they have 
overcome the wicked one. How can this be made to 
quadrate with constant sinning? We are told in iii. 6 
that "whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever 
sinneth seeth him not neither knoweth him." (Alford.) 
We know that it is said that it is the old man that sins 
and the new man does not and cannot. But the old man, 
if he sins, becomes the ego, the sinning subject under 



t JOHN T. 



25 



the wrath of God. "Generally/' says Haupt, "this view 
cannot be psychologically sustained which would intro- 
duce a total cleavage of the one human constitution, 
making half the man a sinner — that is, the old man 
— at the very time that the other half is under the influ- 
ence of the Holy Spirit. All subterfuges of this and 
similar kinds are exploded by a touch of this passage 
itself." It follows that every sin sunders the soul 
from God and makes communion with him and sonship 
or assimilation to him impossible. 

Again, in iii. 8 John solemnly avers that "he 
that committeth sin is of the devil. Whosoever is born 
of God doth not commit sin." Finally this is the great 
criterion by which men are classified as children of God 
or children of the devil, sinning or abstaining from sin. 
Age after age, many mistaken scholars have toiled to 
harmonize John's alleged contradictions and have 
failed. 

(4.) Yet not a few exegetes have found that there is 
not the least contradiction in this Epistle, that John has 
been sadly slandered by the failure to note that in the 
first chapter antinomian objectors appear with the plea 
that as all sin exists in the body, the soul is perfectly 
pure and needs no hyssop branch, nor bleeding beast, nor 
sprinkling priest. Thus the contradictions which were 
found clouding John's crystal style evaporate when we 
consider the historical setting of this precious love letter 



26 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



of John to believers in all coming generations. The 
exegetes who avoid self-contradiction in this Epistle by 
noting its anti-Gnostic aim are Hammond, Grotins, 
Bengel, A. Clarke, Bishop Westcott, Dr. A. Plnmmer, 
Hanpt, "Whedon and others. In general it may be said 
that annotators who have inherited a freedom from the 
bias of predestinarianism find in this Epistle nothing in- 
consistent with perfect holiness in him who claims his 
fnll heritage in Christ. On the other hand those who 
have imbibed the five points of Calvinism will be fonnd 
insisting with the Gnostics that men must sin so long as 
they are in the body. 



CIIAPTEK II. 



Thus far John has treated sin as a reality, and has ex- 
posed the fallacies by which its repugnance to the char- 
acter of God is concealed, and its significance is vainly 
done away by a false philosophy. He now proceeds to 
show that the purpose of this Epistle is the prevention 
and the cure of sin. 

1. "That ye may not sin." This implies that sin is 
not a necessity, that under the dispensation of grace the 
believer may be always victorious over temptation. We 
know that he is addressing those who profess to be Chris- 
tians by the endearing style of address, "My little chil- 
dren," and also by the fact that God is spoken of as 
Father, which is in the New Testament a relationship 
purely spiritual and belonging only to those who have 
been born of the Spirit. It is as evident as the cloudless 
midday sun that John does not regard sin as a normal 
element of the Christian life. In aiming to produce 
complete and constant victory over sin he was not en- 
deavoring to set forth an abnormal character. An un- 
sinning Christian was in his estimation neither an im- 
possibility nor an anomaly. John was not visionary but 

27 



28 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

1. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye may 



sober in his endeavor to edify and purify the church. 
He plainly asserts that sinlessness is the aim of his teach- 
ing, and that this is not gained by efforts on the plane of 
natural ability, but by the grace of our Lord Jesus who 
sends the Paraclete to "cleanse from all unrighteous- 
ness." We call attention to the aorist tense, "may not 
sin," that ye may not commit a single sin. Says Bishop 
Westcott, "The thought is of the single act, not of the 
state (present tense). The tense is decisive against the 
idea that the apostle is simply warning his disciples not 
to draw encouragement for license from the doctrine of 
forgiveness. His aim is to produce the completeness of 
the Christ-like life. (Yerse 6.)" Says Alford, "That ye 
may not sin (at all) implies the absence not only of the 
habit, but of any single acts of sin. The aorist tense 
alone refutes the supposition that J ohn is exhorting the 
unconverted." 

"And if any man sin." Here again the tense indicates 
a single act into which the regenerate person may be sud- 
denly carried against the real purpose and tenor of his 
life (i. 7), in contrast with a career or habitual state of 
sin. The possibility of a sinless Christian life is still im- 
plied. We call attention to the peculiar form of the 
protasis or conditional part of this sentence as contrasted 
with the apodosis or conclusion. It begins with the third 



I JOHN II. 



29 



not sin. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the 
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 



person singular intimating the rarity of a sin in a com- 
pany of normal believers, and also the fact that John 
shrank from saying "if we sin/' thus seemingly identify- 
ing himself with sin. But he changes to the first person 
plural in the conclusion, "we have a Paraclete," because 
sinless believers need the constant intercessions of Jesus 
Christ to keep them victorious over every temptation, 
and to plead their cause against their accuser, the devil. 
The form of the sentence implies that the writer was not 
conscious of any single sin, much less of a state of sin; 
also it indicates that he and his saintly brethren had con- 
stant resort to the Paraclete above for effectual spiritual 
help. 

"We have an Advocate." Greek, Paraclete. This 
is the only text in which this term is applied to Christ, 
although it is implied in John xiv. 16, "he shall give you 
another Paraclete." The most common meaning in 
classic Greek is advocate. Jesus pleads our cause with 
the Pather, and the Holy Spirit pleads the Father's cause 
with us. The priestly office of the Advocate was typi- 
fied by the entrance of the high priest into the Holy of 
Holies on the Day of Atonement. (Heb. vii. 25, ix. 11- 
24.) Augustine thus sets forth the legal aspect of the 
Advocate with the Father, "If a man sometimes in this 



30 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



2. and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, 
but also for the whole world. 



life commits himself to an eloquent tongue and does not 
perish, will you perish if you commit yourself to the 
Logos, the Word?" 

"With the Father." Greek "pros, face to face with" 
Him, addressing Him with continued pleadings in 
that divine nature which still retains the humanity taken 
to itself on the earth. This is expressed by His name 
"Jesus Christ" combining His manhood and divinity as 
Saviour and King. 

"The righteous." That quality needful to give the 
strongest efficacy to His advocacy of the weak and the 
erring, whom He wishes to save, not by setting aside the 
righteous law, but by magnifying it in His own human 
character and in His atoning death voluntarily endured 
for all in fellowship with Him through an obedient faith. 
This exaltation of the divine righteousness is a peculiar- 
ity of John. See i. 9, ii. 29, iii. 7; compare Eom. iii. 
26. Bishop Westcott thinks that the manner of Christ's 
pleading "is a subject wholly beyond our present pow- 
ers." It is certain that in His so-called high priestly 
prayer for His disciples in John xvii. are revealed the 
essence of His present plea, its spirit and arguments. 

2. "He is the propitiation." The Greek pro- 
noun "Himself" magnifies the efficacy of both His 



I JOHN II. 



31 



atonement and His intercession. Note the present tense 
as denoting the propitiation as eternally existing, and not 
as past. See Kev. iv. 6, where Christ in heaven is the 
Lamb newly slain. His garments still retain their bloody 
hue. He is not called our propitiator, but our propitia- 
tion, to emphasize the fact that He does not use means 
outside of Himself, but is in His own person the pro- 
pitiatory offering as well as the high priest. The Greek 
word for propitiation in the New Testament occurs only 
here and in the parallel text iv. 10. It is found more 
frequently in the Old Testament. 

"For our sins." The atonement is efficacious unto 
eternal salvation, in the case of responsible moral agents, 
only on the condition of persevering faith. 

"But also for the whole world." The atonement is 
objectively for all alike, extending as far as the need of 
it extends in time and place. The only limitation to its 
saving power is in human free agency. Hence the pro- 
pitiation is in its subjective efficacy limited to those who 
accept it as their only plea. Hence John says it is not 
only for us who have appropriated it by faith, but also 
for all the sinners in the world on the same terms. The 
omission of the word "sins" before "of the whole world" 
has its parallel in Heb. vii. 27. It has not the least doc- 
trinal significance, as some assert who teach that the 
atonement is limited to those who are unconditionally 
elected to eternal life. 



32 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

3. And hereby know we that we know him, if we keep his com' 
mandments. 



3. "In this we perceive that we know Him." Every 
believer may know that he is saved, first, intuitively by 
the unction of the Holy Spirit, as in ii. 20, 27, and sec- 
ondly, inferential^ from our consciousness of obedience. 
"If we are (continually) keeping His commandments." 
The words "In this" sometimes refer to what has been 
just said; sometimes, as in this case, these words point 
forward to the next utterance. Knowledge of God in- 
volves personal sympathy and aspiration after a perfect 
conformity to His moral character. "To know God as 
God is to be in vital fellowship with Him, to love Him, 
to fulfil that relation toward Him for which we are 
born." (Westcott.) Whether the object of knowledge 
expressed by the pronoun "Him" is the Son of God or 
the Father is unknown. It is no mean argument in 
proof of the Divinity of Jesus Christ that an inspired 
apostle should confound his personality with that of the 
Father. It is quite evident that in John's conception 
Jesus Christ is the God-man, the revelation of God to 
men and possibly to all moral intelligences. As a 
general usage of John's epistles, "that one" refers to 
the Son of God, and "He himself" to the Father. It is 
in the Son that the Father is known. (John xiv. 9.) 

"If we keep His commandments." The scrupulous 



I JOHN II. 



33 



4. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his command- 
ments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him: 

5. but whoso keepeth his word, in him verily hath the love of 
God been perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him: 



observance of definite instructions, a cheerful service not 
of tke letter but of the spirit, prompted not by fear of the 
law, but by love to the lawgiver. A frequent perusal 
of this Epistle is an effectual preventive of antinomian 
tendencies. 

4. "He that saith." An individualizing state- 
ment of the contents of the comprehensive form before 
used, "If we say" (i. 6, 8, 10), and (Greek) used again 
in verse 5. These two forms, with two others, "if any 
one says" and "whosoever says/' are interchangeable. 

"A liar." To be a liar is worse than to lie. The 
noun denotes a more permanent state of depravity than 
the verb. The statement is strengthened by adding "the 
truth is not in him." The whole character is manifestly 
false. 

The Gnostic error here antagonized by John is this, 
that an intellectual knowledge of God, a philosophical 
theism, without obedience, is all that is required of 
Christians. Light can never be a stubstitute for love, 
even if it could exist independent of love. 

5. "Whosoever keepeth his word." The Word of 
God is kept where it is not only remembered, but con- 
tinually obeyed, This constancy is expressed here by 



34 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



the present tense. Here, as in i. 7, the importance of 
the possession of true godliness is urged as opposed to the 
mere semblance and profession of it. The whole revela- 
tion of God in Christ must be scrupulously regarded. 
The "Word of God answers to the spirit and not to the 
letter, and thus binds up into unity His many command- 
ments. For the full meaning of these words study John 
xiv. 21-24. 

"The love of God is perfected.'' We are not sure of 
the meaning of this equivocal phrase, "the love of God," 
whether it is His love to us or our love toward Him. 
But when perfection is predicated of the love of God it 
seems to imply that it relates to our love toward God, 
since our love is capable of imperfection, while His is 
always perfect, and it seems to be a truism to assert its 
perfection, and a paradox to say that it is "perfected." 
It is true that our love is enkindled by His love as a spark 
dropped from the skies, God is said to give His love to 
us when by His Spirit He announces our adoption. 
(Gal. iv. 6.) Then love responsive to that of our great 
Benefactor springs up in our hearts as the first throb of 
spiritual life. In a sense it is God's love throbbing in 
our bosoms, because it is originated, or rather occasioned, 
by Him. But in an important sense it is human, be- 
cause it is the activity of our spiritual susceptibilities un- 
folding according to the laws of mind, as gratitude to- 
ward a benefactor. 



I JOHN II. 



35 



"In itself it is not a startling or revolting thought, 
that the love of God should dwell in us in its full meas- 
ure and in its simple perfection." (Haupt.) St. Paul 
teaches the doctrine of Christian perfection in various 
terms, such as 2 Cor. vii. 1, "perfecting holiness;" xiii. 
8, "be perfect;" Rom. xiii. 10, "love is the fulfilling of 
the law;" Eph. iii. 19, "that ye may be filled with all the 
fulness of God;" iv. 13, "unto a perfect man, unto the 
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;" Heb. 
vii. 25, "he is able to save unto the uttermost;" Heb. 
xiii. 20, 21, "ISTow the God of peace . . . make you 
perfect." See notes on 1 John iv. 12, 17, 18. In the 
Apostolic Fathers we find the following: "Those who in 
love were perfected" (aorist), Clemens Romanus 1 Cor. 
50; and Doctrine of the Apostles, x. 5, "Remember, 
Lord, thy church to perfect it in the love of Thee." It 
is a state of "absolute readiness to learn and to do God's 
will." (Westcott.) It is entered through heart-circum- 
cision. "And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine 
heart and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, that thou 
mayest live." (Deut. xxx. 6.) "The real and eternal 
life." (1 Tim. vi. 12, 19.) Perfect love is completed 
holiness which dwells in the sphere of love. (Eph. i. 4, 
iii. 17-19; 1 Thess. iii. 12, 13; 1 Tim. i. 5.) 

"Hereby we know." Obedience is the infallible sign 
of the union of believers with God. "By this we know'' 



36 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



occurs very often in this Epistle (verse 3, ii. 3, 18, iii. 16, 
19, 24, iv. 2, 6, 13, v. 2), reminding ns of the test tubes 
of a chemist used to ascertain the nature of the substances 
in his crucible. With so many easily applied practical 
tests it would be impossible for an earnest and honest 
person to misjudge his own character and to infer that he 
is a child of God when he is disobeying His command- 
ments. 

"We are in Him." A favorite expression in John's 
writings, denoting the union of the believer with God or 
with Christ, derived from Christ's metaphor of the vine 
and the branches. (John xv. 1-10.) More frequently 
it is "abiding in God," which expresses the personal de- 
termination and effort of trust. See verses 24, 27, 28, 
iii. 6, 24, iv. 12, 13, 15, 16. Beware of the theory of 
the incorporation of the believer in the body of the glori- 
fied Jesus at his first act of saving faith to be forever 
afterward viewed by God as absolutely sinless and per- 
fect in his standing in Christ, though in his state he is 
wallowing in the mire of the foulest sins. This imputed 
personal righteousness is antinomianism, which John 
Wesley defines as "the substitution of faith for holi- 
ness." Bengel calls attention to the near, nearer, near- 
est relation expressed in the progressive phrases in this 
section, "to know him," "to be in him," "to abide in 
him," "cognition," "communion," and "constancy." 



I JOHN II. 



37 



6. he that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk 
even as he walked. 

7. Beloved, no new commandment write I unto you, but an old 



6. "Ought." This expresses a special, personal obli- 
gation "to walk" after the pattern of Him who stands 
out as the one model seen in the faultless perfection of 
His humanity. This walk is in a narrow path, through 
obloquy, reproach, abandonment by opposing friends 
and unbelieving kindred, loss of reputation — "He made 
himself of no reputation" — humiliation, sacrifice, suf- 
fering, poverty, betrayal and crucifixion. We must 
count the cost and be prepared to be baptized with a 
baptism of manifold woes. While His feet were nailed 
to the cross they were walking in the way of love. 
This is the type of the Christian's life. There is no 
other road to heaven. 

7. <r Beloved." While enforcing the commandment 
to love, St. John gives expression to love by this endear- 
ing epithet. 

"From the beginning." He probably means from the 
commencement of the Christian faith of the readers. 
"The new commandment" of love is ever new, because it 
has new sanctions daily with our increasing knowledge of 
Christ. It was new when the disciples saw Him on the 
cross and heard Him pray, "Father, forgive them, for 
they know not what they do." It was new when they 



38 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



commandment which ye had from the beginning: the old com- 
mandment is the word which ye heard. 

8. Again, a new commandment write I unto you, which thing 



saw Him after His resurrection, and again after the 
cloud received Him out of their sight. It had an espe- 
cial newness when the Paraclete on the day of pentecost 
came into their hearts, flooding them with love. As we 
have an ever-increasing ability to apprehend with fresh 
power the beauty of Christ's character, so the command 
to love Him and all who bear His image will be new. 
"While life advances and our spiritual life unfolds the 
Gospel must be always new." Hence there is no irk- 
someness, no theadbareness in real, hearty Christian ser- 
vice. To stationary Christians this commandment is al- 
ways old, but to advancing believers, who have through 
the inner revelation of Christ by the Holy Spirit, more 
and more perfect vision of Him, love is more and more 
abundantly shed abroad in their hearts. 

8. "Which is true in him and in you." Doubly true 
as well as new. First, is always a more attractive object; 
and, second, the normal, progressive disciples have al- 
ways enlarged capacity for loving the adorable Christ 
and all who bear His image. "The fact that the com- 
mandment is new as well as old is proved true in Christ, 
so far as His words and works have become more fully 
known; and 'in you/ so far as the actual experience of 



I JOHN II. 



39 



i3 true in him and in you ; because the darkness is passing away, 
and the true light already shineth. 

9. Re that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in 
the darkness even until now. 



life has shown this duty of love in a new light, more com- 
prehensive and constraining." (Westcott.) 

"Because the darkness is past." Rather is passing 
away, is on the wane and the true light is showing its in- 
creasing splendor; therefore you are under a stronger 
obligation to walk in the light by fellowship with God, 
obedience to His Son, imitation of Christ's example and 
a progressive love of the brethren. Light symbolizes 
intelligence and holiness. 

"The true light." As opposed to the spurious phos- 
phorescence of Gnostic philosophy and the dim and un- 
steady light of the Old Testament. 

9. "In the light, and hateth." An impossible com- 
bination. Saving knowledge is always sympathetic and 
involves love to God and man. It is a very common 
mistake to put intellectual knowledge for a spiritual 
knowledge of Christ. It is easy to substitute an ortho- 
dox head for a regenerate heart. It is the business of 
the faithful pastor to show the disastrous consequences 
and to secure a genuine transformation. "Where sym- 
pathy exists hatred is impossible" (John vii. 7) ; "where 
sympathy does not exist hatred is inevitable" (John xv. 
18-20). (Bishop Westcott.) Yet hatred of iniquity is a 



40 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



10. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there 
is none occasion of stumbling in him. 



moral duty. The English language is unfortunate in 
having the verb "hate" signify abhorrence of evil and 
antipathy to a fellow Christian. The latter is the mean- 
ing of John. 

"His brother." This is the New Testament idea of 
brotherhood. (Acts hi. 17, vi. 3, ix. 30; Eom. i. 13.) 
The title thus limited is used throughout the Epistles. 
Says Westeott, "There is, as far as it appears, no case 
where a fellow-man, as man, is called a brother in the 
New Testament." We are, according to Augustine, 
"So to love our enemies as to make them friends; for 
Christ so loved, who, while hanging on the cross, said, 
'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they 
do.' " 

'Tn darkness even until now." He is not merely false 
in profession, but is in a state of sin, or darkness the 
exact opposite to his profession, a spiritual darkness to 
which there is no sunrise. 

10. "Abideth in the light." He not only is in the 
light, but he also permanently dwells in this delightful 
element. 

"None occasion of stumbling." Through coldness 
toward a fellow Christian a man may not only be a 
stumbling block to others, but he may also, as we infer 



I JOHN II. 



41 



11. But he that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and 
walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, 
because the darkness hath blinded his eyes. 

12. I write unto you, my little children, because your sins are 
forgiven you for his name's sake. 

from verse 11, make his own path dark and difficult, for 
"he knoweth not whither he goes," having lost his as- 
surance which requires love as well as light. Hence 
"his whole life is a continual error." (Howe.) The 
darkness of a lack of love, like physical darkness, de- 
stroys the organ of spiritual vision. See Is. vi. 10; 2 
Cor. iv. 4. The English "blinded," in the sense of 
blindfolded, is not the exact meaning of the Greek "to 
make blind," or to produce a state of blindness. 

b. ii. 12-28. Ulbat umalTtfng in the Xfgbt excludes: tbe 
Gblngs anD {persons to be avoioeo. 

1. Three-fold Statement of Reasons for Writing (ii. 

12-14). 

2. Things to be avoided: the World and its Ways 

(ii.* 15-17). 

3. Persons to be avoided : Antichrists (ii. 18-26). 

4. [Transitional.] The Place of Safety : Christ (ii. 27, 28). 

12. "Little children." This is a title of endearment 
addressed to all St. John's readers, and not to children 
in age. 

"Your sins are forgiven." The Greek perfect tense 
implies not repeated forgiveness up to the present hour, 
but rather the unbroken continuance of a conscious free- 
dom from guilt as the result of pardon. 



42 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



13. I write unto you, fathers, because ye know him which is 
from the beginning, I write unto you, young men, because ye 

"His name's sake." The antecedent to "His" is Christ, 
the thought of whom has been present in the mind of 
John since the last mention of His name in verse 2, and 
the last reference to Him in verse 6. His name implies 
all that is contained in His personality, His sinless exam- 
ple, atoning death, glorious resurrection and mediatorial 
intercession at the right hand of the Father. They who 
believe in His name not only assent to Christian truths, 
but also wholly cast themselves upon His atoning merit 
for the assured possession of eternal life. The declara- 
tion of the purpose of the Gospel in John xx. 31 is, "that 
believing ye may have life through His name." This 
corresponds very closely with the purpose of this Epistle, 
"that ye also may have fellowship with us," i. e., divine 
fellowship implies divine life. 

13. "Fathers." Persons eminent in the church and 
clothed with responsible authority. This title implies 
maturity of Christian life. It is applied in the Old Tes- 
tament to prophets (2 Kings ii. 12, vi. 21), priests (Jud. 
xvii. 10), teachers (Prov.i. 8), and in the Roman Catholic 
Church to the whole body of pastors. "The whole course 
of history is, where rightly understood, the manifestation 
of one will. To know this in Christ is the prerogative of 
a 'father/ and the knowledge is the opportunity for the 
completest life." (Bishop Westcott.) 



I JOHN II. 



have overcome the evil one. I have written unto you. little 
children, because ye know the Father. 

"From the beginning." Him that is from the begin- 
ning, the Logos or "Word who was (not was created) in, 
the beginning (John i. 1-14); this is from eternity and 
within time-limits became flesh, by assuming human na- 
ture, soul and body. 

"Young men." Believers, in the full vigor of their 
physical and mental powers. 

"Have overcome." Xot a momentary triumph, but a 
permanent victory, remaining effective to the present 
moment, like that of Christ, "I have overcome the 
world." (John xvi. 33.) Such a victory is the heri- 
tage of every perfect and persevering believer. 

"The evil one." A personal adversary in the spiritual 
realm with whom the Christian must have an inevitable 
conflict, ending in victory, or a shameful defeat through 
culpable cowardice. In John's writings he is called "the 
serpent," "the ancient serpent," "the dragon," who is 
called "the devil and Satan," "the accuser," and the 
"ruler of this world," whom Paul calls "the (usurping) 
god of this world." Of his origin we know very little, 
but enough to know that he was once upright, but volun- 
tarily fell into sin. (John viii. 44.) This excludes dual- 
ism, the notion of two co-eternal beings or principles, 
good and evil, the one inhering in spirit and the other in 
matter. 



44 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



14. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye know him which 
ifc from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, 
because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye 
have overcome the evil one. 

15. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. 
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

14. At the close of verse 13, John seems to have laid 
down his pen for a season. On resuming it again he 
reads the last verse written in the present tense and pro- 
ceeds to repeat his address in the nse of the past tense, 
as if explaining his former advice to the same three 
classes. 

"Because ye know him." This knowledge im- 
plies the new birth, establishing a direct spiritual 
connection through the agency of both the Son of God 
and the Holy Spirit. For "no man knoweth the Father, 
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will re- 
veal him." The fatherhood of God is a spiritual relation 
made known only by a supernatural revelation, through 
the Holy Spirit, by whom the new birth is accomplished, 
and by whom, as the Spirit of adoption, crying in our 
hearts, "Abba, Father," it is revealed. St. John says 
much about the knowledge of God as the privilege of the 
believer. The phrase "ye have known" occurs three 
times in these two verses; "ye know" occurs eight times, 
and "we know" is found seventeen times in this Epistle. 
He teaches a knowable salvation more emphatically than 
John Wesley. There is involved in the knowledge of 



I JOHN II. 45 

16. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the 



the Father, sympathy, love and submission. It dwells 
not so much in the sphere of the intellect as in that of 
the heart. 

"Have overcome." The perfect tense implies past 
triumph continuing to the present time. The true 
Christian is always young. He has the habit of victory, 
like Napoleon and Grant. Each successive victory 
makes him stronger for the next conflict. What could 
stand before a church composed of such members? To 
conserve this all-conquering strength John now proceeds 
to warn believers against the enervating effects of world- 
liness. 

16. "Love not the world." The sum of secular in- 
fluences hostile to God, "the world is the order of finite 
being regarded as apart from God. Whatever is treated 
as complete without reference to God is so far a rival to 
God" (Westcott), instead of being the true expression 
of God's will under the conditions of its creation. Some 
exegetes harmonize this prohibition, 'love not the 
world," with the statement, "God so loved the world" 
(John iii. 16), by saying, "That which man may 
not do, being what he is, God can do, because He looks 
through the surface of things by which man is misled to 
the very being which He created." A better harmony 
of these Scriptures is found in the fact that love has two 



4 6 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father, but 
is of the world. 



meanings: (1) a love of pity, and (2) a love of compla- 
cency and delight. In the first meaning we not only 
may love the world, but we ought to love the world, if 
we are in sympathy with God, and we are under obliga- 
tion to evince our pitying love by godlike self-sacrifice 
for the salvation of the fallen world. The more Christ- 
like we are the more perfectly will we fulfil this obli- 
gation. But this material world, as an object of delight 
in preference to its Creator, we may not love. Augus- 
tine finely illustrates this point: "If the bridegroom 
should make for his bride a ring and give it to her, and 
if she should love the ring more than her husband who 
made it for her, would not an adulterous disposition be 
detected by means of this very gift of her bridegroom, 
although she was loving what he gave to her?" 

"The love of the Father is not in him." One heart 
cannot contain two loves so hostile to each other as the 
love of light and the love of darkness. John assumes 
that there can be no vacuum in the soul. Says Augus- 
tine to the young convert, "Thou art a vessel, but 
hitherto thou hast been full. Pour out what thou hast 
that thou mayest receive what thou hast not. Exclude 
the evil love of the world, that thou mayest be filled 
with the love of God." All other loves must be second- 



I JOHN II. 



47 



17. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he 
that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. 

ary, must be in harmony with love to God, and must be 
referred to Him. But supreme love to the finite is 
antagonistic to love of the infinite One, because the 
sense of personal relationship to Him is lost. The exact 
order of the Greek is remarkably suggestive : "There ex- 
ists not (whatever he may say), the love of the Father 
in him." Says Philo, as quoted by John of Damascus, 
"It is as impossible for love toward the world to co-exist 
with love toward God as it is impossible for light and 
darkness to dwell with each other." The philosophy 
of this negation is given in the next verse. 

17. "Because everything in the world ... is pass- 
ing away." 

The stream never rises higher than the fountain. 
Supreme love to the world being limited by the perish- 
ing world is incompatible with love toward the eternal 
Father. This incongruity relates not only to the in- 
equality in the duration of the two objects of love, but 
also to their characters. Supreme love to a finite object 
is a degrading idolatry; supreme love to God is a most 
elevating and transforming virtue. Hence the prohi- 
bition of love toward the world is prompted by a benevo- 
lent desire in the heart of God to avert from us an un- 
speakable evil and to bestow that happiness which shall 
be as lasting as His own eternal existence. 



48 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



"The lust of the flesh." The flesh is the subject in 
which the desire dwells. It seeks to appropriate that 
which is like itself, material rather than spiritual. It 
is not sin, but has a natural leaning toward sin in fallen 
humanity. But all unlawful pleasures are sinful and 
lawful gratifications of sense may become sinful by 
being excessive, as gluttony. St. John rarely uses the 
term "flesh" in the same way that St. Paul generally 
does, to denote that portion of man's nature which has 
an hereditary proclivity toward sin. The removal of it 
by entire sanctificaton is called "the crucifixion of the 
flesh." Rarely, if ever, is "the body" thus used. The 
phrase "vile body" is an erroneous translation of "the 
body of our humiliation." (Phil. iii. 21, R. V.) The 
body is not to be crucified or flagellated, but sanctified 
by the indw r elliug of the Holy Spirit, otherwise it will 
be polluted and degraded by the tyranny of the flesh. 

"The lust of the eyes." The eye is the inlet of 
much innocent pleasure. But this pleasure becomes 
idle and prurient curiosity, when it craves unlawful 
sights, inflaming pictures, nude statuary, polluting 
scenic displays, the foul exhibitions of the circus, the 
cruel and savage exhibitions of the ancient amphithea- 
tre and the murderous excitements of the modern prize 
fight. The college regattas, baseball matches and 
deadly football contests make their appeals, through 
the eyes of myriads of spectators, to the bestial rather 



I JOHN II. 



49 



than the angelic in human nature. The public compe- 
titions of modern athleticism have degenerated into 
what Augustine aptly styles, "sacraments of the devil." 
The lust of the eyes also includes the leprous novel, in 
which scenes of debauchery are spread out before the 
imagination, the eye of the mind. The lust of the flesh 
seeks to appropriate the object of its desire, while the 
lust of the eyes is satisfied by enjoyment under the form 
of contemplation. The first is physical, the second is 
mental. Both are hostile to true spirituality, which 
lives only in the atmosphere of holiness. 

"The vainglory of life." Priding one's self on a false 
view of what things are in themselves, empty, unstable 
and unsatisfying. The Greek word for "life" fre- 
quently signifies, as it does here, "the means of life." 
(Mark xii. 44; Luke viii. 43, xv. 12, 30; 1 John iii. 17.) 

17. "Is of the world." This is the derivation of the 
perversities just named. From it they take their moral 
character; they inherit the destiny of the world, the 
fashion of which "is passing away." "Not only is the 
love of the world irreconcilable with the love of the 
Father, but also yet further, the fate of the world is in- 
cluded in its essential character." (Westcott.) The 
world is a screen which hides from unbelievers the pres- 
ence of God. They have eyes to see not spiritual reali- 
ties, but their perishable material semblances. 

"And the lust thereof*" The desire for the world is 



5° HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

18. Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that 



as unsubstantial as the world itself, which awakened it. 
But the desire will remain forever an aching void in the 
spirit bereft of its idol by death. 

"But he that doeth . . . abideth." Doing God's 
will is the strongest proof of supreme love. The con- 
trast of a world loved as an idol is not God, as we might 
expect, but the obedient believer brought into vital sym- 
pathy with Him, so that he partakes of His eternal 
blessedness as a kinsman of His eternal Son. (Mark 
iii. 35.) 

18. "It is the last hour/*' This expression denotes a 
crisis and not the end of the world. Christianity is the 
last dispensation in human history. It will be a period 
of suffering and conflict ending in victory over all the 
foes of Christ. Of these the most subtle and the most 
difficult to conquer is that evil power which antagonizes 
Christ by proposing to take His name and to continue 
His work while denying Him. This hypocrisy on the 
part of men professing faith in Christ is personified un- 
der the name of antichrist, a word meaning far more 
than an adversary of Christ. Says Bishop Westcott, 
"The essential character of antichrist lies in the denial 
of the true humanity of Messiah, as in verse 22, in iv. 3 ; 
and 2 John 7." To refute the Gnostic denial of the 
reality of Christ's body is the purpose of this Epistle. 



I JOHN II. 



antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists; 
whereby we know that it is the last hour. 

19. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they 
had been of us, they would have continued with us: but they 



If He is not the God-man, very God and very man, there 
is an impassable gulf between God and the world. It 
is not bridged by the incarnate Son, if He is not a real 
man. If His body was a phantom, His incarnation, aton- 
ing death and resurrection are unreal. God is still un- 
known and unknowable, and all men are, and ever must 
be, agnostics groaning under the burden of unf orgiven 
sins. 

"Even now . . . many antichrists" have arisen in 
f oreshadowings of one great future antichrist. 

19. "They were not of us." This means that these 
false teachers were not in sympathy with the church at 
the time of their withdrawal. It does not signify 
that they were never genuine Christians. The fact that 
there are withered and fruitless branches now in the 
true vine (John xv. 2) does not prove that those 
branches were never alive, but, rather, it proves their 
former life. It is a case of manifest apostasy, begin- 
ning in the spirit and ending in the flesh. They re- 
mained awhile in the church after the extinction of their 
spiritual life, "as evil humors in the body of Christ. 
(Augustine.) The clear revelation of their changed 
character was a divine safeguard against further harm; 



52 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

went out, that they might be made manifest how that they all are 
not of us. 

20. And ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know 
all things. 



for by going out they neutralized their future bad in- 
fluence within the church. 

20. "But ye have an unction." The word "ye" is 
emphatic. The outward symbol of the Old Testament, 
the sacred oil compounded, as in Ex. xxx. 22-25, is here 
used to signify the gift of the Spirit, the characteristic 
endowment of every believer who aspires to his full her- 
itage in Christ, "the Holy One." Jesus was called in 
the Hebrew Messiah, anointed, and in the Greek, 
Christos, because he received the chrisma, or unction 
of the Holy Spirit, inducting Him into His three-fold 
office of prophet, priest and king. (1 Kings xix. 16; 
Ex. xl. 15; 1 Sam. ix. 16.) This chrism is used by John 
in contrast to the antichrists, who, because they had 
either not received or had lost the sanctifying and illu- 
minating chrism, were in revolt against their Teacher, 
Saviour and Lord. The Holy Spirit is the conservator 
of orthodoxy and of loyalty to Christ. Since Christ 
sends the Paraclete it seems to be more natural to refer 
"the Holy One" to the Second Person of the Trinity. 

"Ye know all things." The text of Westcott and 
Hort is, "Ye all know," {. e., the truth. Hence no false 
teaching respecting fundamentals can deceive you, so 



I JOHN II. 



S3 



21. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, 
but because ye know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 

22. Who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? 

long as ye dwell under the anointing by the exercise of 
a persevering faith in the incarnate Son of God. The 
anointing with oil as a part of the ceremony of baptism 
is a human invention having no scriptural authority. 

21. "Eo lie is of the truth.' 7 This truism is John's 
way of expressing the eternal distinction between truth 
and falsehood. He had no notion that he could be of 
use to believers in Christ unless there was in them a 
capacity of distinguishing truth from a lie and of recog- 
nizing intuitively and feeling instinctively the everlast- 
ing opposition of one to the other. The most hopeless 
case is that of a person who has lost this capacity, who 
enjoys the rainbow hues of error and regards it as truth, 
and despises the granitic reality of truth and treats it as 
fiction. 

"And for this cause God shall send them strong delu- 
sion, that they should believe a lie." (2 Thess. ii. 
11, 12.) 

22. "Who is the liar?" This is the exact 
original. The word "lie" suggests to John the biggest 
liar in the universe who sums up in his own person all 
that is false. "The denial of the fact 'Jesus is the 
Christ,' when grasped in its full significance — intellec- 
tual, moral, spiritual — includes all falsehood; it reduces 



54 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



This is the antichrist, even he that denieth the Father and the 
Son. 

23. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: 
he that confesseth the Son hath the Father also. 



all knowledge of necessity to a knowledge of phenom- 
ena; -it takes away the highest ideal of sacrifice; it de- 
stroys the connection of God and man." (Westcott.) 
There are no liars if he who denies that Jesus is the 
Christ is not one. This is parallel to Abraham Lin- 
coln's terse expression, "If slavery is not wrong, nothing 
is wrong." "These Gnostic teachers, who profess to be 
in the possession of the higher truth, are really possessed 
by one of the worst of lies." (The Cambridge Bible for 
Schools and Colleges.) 

"Denieth the Father." This follows the denial of 
the Son, who is the only personal revelation of the 
Father. The Supreme Divinity of Christ is our only 
safeguard against polytheism on the one hand and 
pantheism on the other. Our knowledge of the unity, 
the personality and the moral perfections of God is re- 
vealed in Jesus Christ, and in Him only. 

23. "Hath the Father also." The sentence of which 
these words are a part for no good reason is in italics in 
the A. Y. There is no doubt of the genuineness of the 
original. It is correctly printed in the E. Y. The 
confession of the Son is more than an intellectual act; 
it is the surrender of the will and the reliance of the 



I JOHN II. 



^5 



24. As for you, let that abide in you which ye heard from the 
beginning. If that which ye heard from* the beginning abide in 
you, ye also shall abide in the Son, and in the Father. 



heart on Him alone for salvation. To such a person 
says he, "My Father will love him, and we will come 
unto him and make our abode with him." 

24. "Let that abide in you." The emphatic word 
is "you." "As for you" in contrast with the Gnostic 
■ error ists spoken of in verse 22. The strength of the 
Christian is not in his good resolutions, but in the Holy 
Spirit, the author of life abiding within the believer. 
In iv. 15 this strength is still more emphatically ex- 
pressed in the mutual indwelling — a double mystery, 
"God in us, we in God." We let the Spirit abide when 
we with a right attitude of the will exercise an appro- 
priating faith in Hi3 promises. "Looking unto Jesus" 
is the conquering attitude of the soul. In modern 
phrase the exhortation of John is this, "Hold fast the 
Gospel which ye first heard, and reject the innovations 
of these false teachers." From the beginning Chris- 
tianity is perfect and incapable of improvement. 

"Ye also." Divine life is the source of divine fellow- 
ship. 

"Shall abide in the Son and in the Father." Through 
faith in the Son we mount up to the knowledge of the 
Father. How my spirit can interpenetrate and abide in 



56 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

25. And this is the promise which he promised us, even the life 
eternal. 

26. These things have I written unto you concerning them that 
would lead you astray. 

27. And as for you, the anointing which ye received of him 
abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you; but as 

the personality of the Son and that of the Father is a 
mystery next to the mystery of Three Persons in one 
Divine nature. But the heart can feel what the intel- 
lect cannot comprehend. 

25. "Eternal life" is only another view of abiding 
in the Son and in the Father. It is the heart knowledge 
of God. "And this is life eternal, that they should 
know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom 
Thou hast sent." It was the mission of Christ to offer 
spiritual life and lead men to seek it through faith in 
Himself. 

26. An experimental knowledge of Christ is the best 
safeguard against the Gnostics, "them that would lead 
you astray." This knowledge no human instruction 
can teach. The Holy Spirit, here called "the anoint- 
ing," imparts life to the penitent believer and the power 
of spiritual perception. These fundamental facts are 
revealed only by the Holy Spirit — regeneration, for- 
giveness, adoption and entire sanctification. In minor 
particulars teachers are helpful, but in respect to these 
fundamentals and experimentals "Christians needed not 
fresh teaching, even from apostles, still less from those 



I JOHN ii. 



57 



his anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and 
is no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in him. 

28. And now, my little children, abide in him; that, if he shall 
be manifested, we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before 
him at his coming. 



who professed to guide them into new 'depths' " (West- 
cott), who made spiritual excellence to consist, not in a 
holy life, but in knowledge of an esoteric kind open only 
to the initiated, who boasted that they "knew the 
depths" and could say, "this is profound." Says Augus- 
tine, "He who teaches hearts has His chair in heaven." 

28. At this point John turns from the ideal to the 
practical view of Christian truth and duty, the sum of 
which is "abide in Him," and give proof of it by your 
conduct. 

"When He shall appear." Better, "if He shall be 
manifested." The "if" implies doubt as to the time, 
not as to the future facts of Christ's final coming to the 
general judgment. 

"We may have boldness." A word which in the 
Greek always implies unreserved utterance or freedom 
of speech. No word could be found in that language 
which so strongly exrpesses deliverance, not only from 
guilty fear, but also from speechless awe. 

"Not be ashamed before Him." Not shrink back 
with shame or dread from His presence as the judge of 
all men. It is the privilege of every Christian to live 



58 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



29. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one also 
that doeth righteousness is begotten of him. 



on the earth every day with love to Christ so pure and 
perfect as to prompt him, if possible, to meet the de- 
scending J udge more than halfway. See iv. 17, note. 

ii. 29-v. 12. God is Love. 

c. ii. 29-iii. 24. XLbc jEvioence of Sonsbip: 2>eeos of 
IRigbteousness before (3oo. 

1. The Children of God and the Children of the Devil 

(ii. 29-iii. 12). 

2. Love and Hate : Life and Death (iii. 13-24). 

29. "He is righteous . . . begotten of Him." The 
difficulty is to determine the antecedent of the pronouns 
"he" and "him." The last person mentioned is Christ 
the Judge. But "to be born of Christ" is not a scrip- 
tural idea. It is evident that John so firmly believed 
that the Father reveals Himself in His co-equal Son that 
he made the transition from one Divine Person to the 
other almost unwittingly. 

"Is begotten of Him." He who in his character is 
like God is in Hebrew phrase begotten of Him. The 
habitually righteous man is a true son of the righteous 
God. Other points of likeness are faith and love. 

CONCLUDING NOTE TO CHAPTER II. 

The connection of thought in the first verse, ex- 
pressed by "these things," reflects light upon the treat- 



I JOHN II. 



59 



ment of sin in Chapter I. Some earnestly contend 
that verses 8 and 10 teach the absolute presence of sin in 
every believer's heart after forgiveness has been be- 
stowed and the new birth and purification by the Holy 
Spirit procured by the blood of Christ have been expe- 
rienced. In other words, after grace has done its ut- 
most the Christian has sin which he should confess. 
E"ow the natural effect of the doctrine that sin is inevi- 
table is to give up the struggle against it and to yield 
ourselves unresistingly to its lusts. In fact, one exegete 
tells us, in vew of the inevitableness of sin, that John 
was constrained to put in this caveat: These things I do 
not write that ye may sin. But he did not write thus, 
but in view of the turpitude of sin rendering the sinner 
false hearted and accusing God of lying, and considering 
the effectual provisions of grace in the atonement to 
transform and entirely sanctify the believer, so that sin 
is now in every case avoidable, "I write unto you that 
ye do not sin even once" (aorist tense denoting a single 
act). No bulwark against sin can be made out of the 
statement that the holiest saints on earth are sinners. 
But a positive restraint from sin exists in forgiveness, 
regeneration and entire sanctiflcation by the Holy Spirit 
initiating us into a state of perfected holiness. 

"If we say." "This 'if we' continues in almost every 
verse until ii. 3, after which it is changed into its equiva- 
lent 'he that,' which continues down to ii. 11; after that 



60 HALF— HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

neither form is used." (Cambridge Bible for Schools.) 
Mark this, that "if we" is the exact equivalent of "he 
that." Substitute the latter for the former and the fal- 
lacy of the assertion that John includes himself where 
he says, "If we say we have no sin/' immediately ap- 
pears. Ebrard suggests "that 'if we say' is quite analo- 
gous to the 'though a man say/ " in J ames ii. 14. On 
that account we must not lay too much stress on the first 
person plural; it serves only to express the general "one," 
and only so far represents the universal application of 
the saying announced in verses 6, 7 (he might have said 
verses 8, 9 and 10 also) : not as if St. John had meant to 
say, "even if I, the apostle, were to say this, and never- 
theless Avalk in darkness, I should be a liar." Ebrard 
then argues extendedly that there is a radical difference 
between "having sin" and walking in darkness : "For the 
latter is assumed to be entirely excluded from the condi- 
tion of a Christian, while the former must be acknowl- 
edged as present in every Christian" (the first person 
plural). Such contradiction and sophistication mar a 
great scholar and exegete who admits that "the Gnosti- 
cism of a Cerinthus, that enemy of the truth who was 
living in the same city with John himself, was confront- 
ing the apostle with the root of all the heresies — do- 
cetic, pantheistic Gnosticism," which denied the exist- 
ence of sin in the human spirit, insisting that it pollutes 
the body only, and hence that the unregenerated Gnos- 



I JOHN II. 



61 



tics had no need of the blood of Christ in atonement be- 
cause they had before their professed conversion to 
Christ no sins to be expiated. If we admit with Epis- 
copius, Grotius, Whedon and others that the phrase "to 
have no sin" denies the guilt of sins before conversion, 
we relieve the Epistle from the most glaring incon- 
sistency and manifest contradiction, in asserting that a 
soul can be forgiven its sins and cleansed from all un- 
righteousness, and at the same time have sin entailing 
guilt such as is implied by John's idiomatic phrase, "to 
have sin." 



CHAPTEE III. 



The third chapter should begin with the last verse of 
the second, which speaks of being begotten of God. 
Then naturally the author describes the present charac- 
ter and future position of the children of God when 
their real glory, now unappreciated by the world, shall 
be outwardly manifested. 

1. "Behold." This is not a mere interjection of sur- 
prise, but a verb in the plural number calling on all to 
gaze upon something actually visible now to eyes 
anointed by the Holy Spirit, and destined to be tran- 
scendently glorious hereafter. 

"What manner of love." Love is the very essence 
of Christianity distinguishing it from all false religions. 
Its origin is not earthly, but heavenly. It is a spark 
dropped from the skies, not to consume sinners, but to 
illumine and purify believers. 

"The Father." This title and its correlative, child 
or son, always in the New Testament denotes a spiritual 
relation. To treat the Fatherhood of God as natural, 
including all men, irrespective of character, is the fun- 
damental error of the so-called liberalism which in mod- 

62 



I JOHN III. 



63 



1. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon 
us, that we should be called children of God: and such we are. 



ern times wears the mark of Christianity. See John i. 
12, 13. 

"Hath given to us." Subjective love cannot be 
given, but it bestows such gifts as shall awaken respon- 
sive love in the heart of its object. The gift of God's 
only begotten Son is designed to produce this effect in 
every sinner who hears and believes the gospel. True 
believers are thus inspired with a love which is like the 
love of God, and by its transforming power they are en- 
abled to claim the title of children of God, because they 
have become like Him in moral character. In Hebrew 
phrase a wise man is a son of wisdom and a godlike man 
is a son of God. 

The pronouns "we" and "us" throughout this Epistle 
refer to believers. "That we (literally, in order that 
we) should be called." Adoption into the family of 
God, not only nominal, but real, is the purpose of that 
love which manifests itself in the unspeakable gift of 
His Son. 

"Called." Divinely acknowledged. 

"The children of God." The A. V. erroneously 
has "sons." Community of nature is denoted by "chil- 
dren," and privilege and maturity are implied in "sons." 
The only place in John's writings where "son" is used 



64 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

For this cause the world knoweth us not, because it knew him 
not. 

of man's relation to God is Rev. xxi. 7. "Son" is a fa- 
vorite word with Paul. 

"And such we are." Two precious Greek words, 
"kai esmen," have been recovered by sacred scholarship 
since the A. V. was made in 1611 A. D. The author 
seems to have inserted these words parenthetically as 
his own personal testimony to a realized fact correspond- 
ing to the reputed historic position of members of 
Christ's church. 

"Therefore the world knoweth us not." For the 
good reason that it was so spiritually blind as totally to 
fail to recognize God revealed in Jesus Christ, and to 
crucify Him between two thieves. 

"The world" is recognized as the power hostile to God 
and to all who bear His image. The believer in Christ 
is the object of two opposite forces, the one drawing to- 
ward sin and perdition and the other toward holiness and 
heaven. The result is determined by his persistent choice. 

His preference of things not seen to things seen, of 
grace over gold, of self-denial instead of self-indulgence, 
is to the world an insoluble mystery, because the spring 
of action cannot be understood. 

"Him." God in Christ is the person totally unknown 
to the world. Says Augustine, "By loving the pleasures 
of sin men ignore God; by loving what the fever craves 



I JOHN III. 65 
2. Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made 



men damage the reputation of the physician." Unbe- 
lief counteracts the remedies of the Great Physician. 

2. "It is not yet made manifest" . . . "if he shall 
be manifested." The chief difficulty is in the last 
clause. It may be rendered "if it shall be manifested," 
having for its subject the impersonal "it," as in the first 
clause. But this interpretation, though it seems to be 
natural, obscures the meaning by making the certainty 
that we shall be like Him dependent on its manifestation 
to our minds. But this certainty is absolute, and condi- 
tioned upon no such future contingency; we know that 
we who perseveringly believe shall be like Him when 
He appears. This knowledge that we shall be like 
Christ cannot be said to depend upon the manifestation 
of what we shall be. Our exegesis is confirmed by the 
rendering of the same phrase in ii. 28, "if he shall be 
manifested;" a personal subject is also used in iii. 8. 

"Because we shall see." Here "because" is ambig- 
uous. "The likeness to God may be either (1) the neces- 
sary condition, or (2) the actual consequence of the 
Divine Vision. The argument may be: We shall see 
God, and, therefore, since this is possible, we must be 
like Him; or, We shall see God, and in that presence 
we shall reflect His glory, and be transformed into His 
likeness." (Bishop Westcott.) 



66 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be mani- 
fested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is. 



If in the light of the beatitude, "Blessed are the pure 
in heart, for they shall see God," we accept the first exe- 
gesis, the likeness is the condition of the vision. If the 
second exegesis had been the idea in the mind of John, 
the expression would have been "we shall become like 
Him" instead of "shall be like Him." "We see that 
which we have the sympathetic power of seeing." Says 
Augustine, "The entire life of a good Christian is holy 
desire. But what you desire you do not yet see ; but by 
desiring you will be rendered capacious, so that when 
He comes you will be filled with what you see. . . . God 
by deferring enlarges desire, by desiring He extends the 
mind, by extending He makes its receptivity larger. 
This is our whole life that we may be educated by desir- 
ing." Hence John in this verse appears to mark a state 
which co-exists with the Divine manifestation at the 
first, and does not follow from it. There are texts (2 
Cor. in. 18, v. 4) which teach the transfiguring virtue 
of the inner revelation of God in Christ by the Holy 
Ghost. The chief element of the vision of God is 
knowledge, real, intuitive and continuous, a preparation 
and incentive to joyful service. "His servants render 
religious service to Him and they shall see His face and 
His name shall be in their foreheads." (Bev. xxii. 4.) 



I JOHN III. 



67 



3. And every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth him- 
self, even as he is pure. 



Beware of the doctrine of the possibility of acquiring 
moral purity after the second coming of Christ. Holi- 
ness is never in the Holy Scriptures an object of hope, 
for the good reason that its present possession by the 
believer is always assumed. 

The schoolmen discussed the question whether the 
human intellect will ever become able to see God in es- 
sence. We believe that we will always see Him only in 
His glorified Son. Augustine thus portrays this Divine 
vision: "Therefore we are about to gaze upon a certain 
vision . . . transcending all terrestrial beauties of gold, 
of silver, of groves and plains, of the sea and of the air, 
the beauty of the sun and moon and stars, the beauty of 
the angels, surpassing all things, because all things are 
beautiful on account of this vision itself. What there- 
fore shall we be when we see this? What has been 
promised to us? Like Him shall we be, because we shall 
see Him as He is. The tongue has spoken in what man- 
ner it could; let the rest be pondered in the heart." 

3. "Every one that hath this hope on Him." The 
practical lesson of the Divine vision and its antecedent 
condition of likeness to Him is the motive to persever- 
ance in holy living. Sin weaves a film over the spirit- 
ual eye. Sanctification removes that film, and per- 



68 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



sistence in that faith which retains the indwelling 
Sanctifier keeps it from returning to darken the soul. 
Thus faith requires constant personal effort directed to 
this definite point, "purifieth himself." This can be 
done by the believer only indirectly, since purification is 
the work of the Holy Spirit. It is ours constantly to 
fulfil the conditions on which He sanctifies entirely and 
abides permanently. Says Augustine, "Who but God 
purifies us? But God does not purify thee against thy 
will. Therefore, so far as you adjust your will to God 
you purify yourself. . . . Because in that matter you 
do something by your own voluntary act, on this account 
this something is ascribed to yourself." The practice 
of ceremonial purification which was required before 
appearing in God's presence in the temple (John xi. 55) 
explains this form of expression. See Heb. x. 19-22. 
"He of whom it is said that he purifies himself not only 
keeps himself actually 'pure/ but disciplines and trains 
himself that he may move more surely among the defile- 
ments of the world." (1 Tim. v. 22; 1 Pet. iii. 2.) 
(Bishop Westcott.) 

"Even as that one (Christ) is pure." The pronoun 
"that one" in this Epistle refers to Jesus as a man, and 
the Greek word for "pure" applies only to a virtue at- 
tained by human discipline. It is chosen here to em- 
phasize the reference to the Lord's life on the earth. In 
iv. 17, "as he is so are we in this world," the likeness of 



I JOHN III. 



6 9 



4. Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness: and sin is 
lawlessness. 



Christians to Christ is to His character as it is at present 
and eternally, and not only to its historical manifesta- 
tion. 

John now comes to a description of Gnostic teachers 
suggested by the idea of purification. The basal thought 
of these false teachers, who called themselves "the gnos- 
tic or knowing ones/' is salvation in knowledge. This 
idea is everywhere present. 

Sin is now considered in its manifestation, and defined 
in its essence. 

4. a Every one that doeth sin," despite his philo- 
sophic theories and the intensity of his fancied illumina- 
tion and superior knowledge, "doeth also lawlessness." 
Sin cannot be concealed by fine sounding phrases, such 
as an innocent misstep, a pardonable error. Every vol- 
untary violation of the known law of God is a realization 
of sin in its completeness (Greek — "the" sin). 

"Sin is lawlessness." These are convertible terms, 
and with equal truth the sentence may be read back- 
wards. Sin is a wilful collision of a finite will with the 
highest authority in the universe. A failure to fulfil 
the law which man was created to keep, on which his 
happiness is suspended, is more than a disaster, it is a 
sin. Duty is threefold, to God, to men and to self. 



yo HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



5. And ye know that he was manifested to take away sins; and 
in him is no sin. 

Hence there are three forms of sin. In each form there 
may be the doing of what is forbidden, which is a sin of 
commission, and the failure to do what is required, 
which is the sin of omission. In the last analysis sin 
may be traced to selfishness. See James i. 14, 15, for 
the first form of sin as selfishness, and James iv. 17 for 
the second form, a selfish failure in duty to others, which 
is emphasized by Christ in His description of the final 
judgment. (Matt. xxv. 31-46.) Sin reaches its climax 
when, having heard of the mission of Christ, the sinner 
sets Him at naught in His purpose "to take away sins." 
This He does, says Bede, "by forgiving sins, by help- 
ing us to keep from committing sins, and by 
reason of our moral inability to sin wilfully (Gen. xxix. 
9) against one whom we love with the whole heart. 
Deliverance from punishment is the least part of 
Christ's work of taking away sins. He takes away the 
disposition to sin from every one who by faith claims 
His full heritage of divine grace. "He came to remove 
all sins, even as He was Himself sinless." (Bishop West- 
cott.) This explains how sin is utterly incompatible with 
fellowship with Him. It implies a rebuke of the Gnos- 
tic teachers, for the practice of sin, and it proved their 
professed knowledge of Christ to be unreal and hypo- 
critical. 



I JOHN III. 



71 



6. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth 
hath not seen him, neither knoweth him. 

6. "Abiding in Him." This is more than simply 
"being" in Christ, because it expresses effort, and the 
present tense denotes that it is continuous. 

"Sinneth not," literally "is not sinning." Character 
and fixed habit are here predicated, and not an isolated 
act contrary to the general trend of a holy life. The 
possibility of such a single wrong act under a sudden 
temptation is implied in ii. 1. It does interrupt 
fellowship, but it does not necessarily extinguish spirit- 
ual life and forfeit sonship to God, if there is an imme- 
diate resort to the "Advocate with the Father." The 
essence of the new life is love flowing Godward and man- 
ward. Anything which stops the flow of this current 
is fatal to the divine life. A single inadvertent sin, like 
a backward eddy, does not arrest the onward moving 
river, though it impedes its progress. Yet it remains 
true that there cannot be — what the agnostics professed 
— a sinning companionship with the sinless Christ. "He 
receiveth sinners" for conversion and not for compla- 
cent communion. 

"Hath not seen Him." This seems to indicate that 
some teachers were giving authority to their destructive 
errors by appealing to the fact that they had looked 
upon the person of Christ. But Paul teaches us that 
there is no saving effect of such a sight. (2 Cor. v. 16.) 



72 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



7. My little children, let no man lead you astray: he that doeth 
righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous: 

8. he that doeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from 

"Neither knoweth Him." "The point regarded/' 
say Dean Alford and Bishop Westcott, "is present and 
not past." Whatever sympathetic intimacy with Christ 
he may have formerly had, it is certain that he who is 
now in a course of sin is a stranger to Him. 

7. "Let no man lead yon astray." This caveat re- 
lates especially to snch misconceptions of Christian truth 
as lead to unrighteous conduct. Action follows opin- 
ion. "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." This 
is seen in the derivation of the word 1 "miscreant" from 
two Latin words, "minus" and "credo," signifying misbe- 
liever. Orthodoxy is not saving, but it is the appointed 
medium of salvation. 

"He that doeth righteousness." Whose entire ac- 
tivity is prompted by righteousness in its completeness 
and unity. Character underlies conduct. 

"Even as He (Christ) is righteous." Well says Bishop 
Westcott: "The Christian's righteousness, of which 
Christ is the perfect type, must extend to the fulness 
of life." (John xiii. 15, xv. 12, xvii. 14, and notes 
on ii. 6, iv. 17.) Christ's earthly life is the complete 
model of right action under all possible conditions. 

8. "Is of the devil." Not by creation, nor by gener- 
ation, for the devil has neither created nor begotten any- 



I JOHN III. 



73 



the beginning. To this end was the Son of God manifested, that 
he might destroy the works of the devil. 



body. But he who imitates the devil in his disposition 
and deeds, in Hebrew phrase, is of him, or by a still 
stronger metaphor, he is a child of the devil. Paul in 
his genesis of sin traces it back to Adam, but John goes 
back of the first parent, to the first tempter, Satan. 

"Sinneth from the beginning." The present tense 
denotes incessant action. The first human being soon 
discovered that he was between two antagonistic forces 
— sin and holiness — and that he could not maintain a 
neutral position, but must link his destiny with one or 
the other of these hostile powers. He must affiliate with 
light or darkness. He cannot by combining them cre- 
ate a medium element in which to dwell. 

"Destroy the works of the devil." The bent to sin- 
ning which Satan by tempting Adam and Eve to diso- 
bedience, induced in all their descendants. We cannot 
accept the declaration of some persons that "the works 
of the devil are the sins which he causes men to com- 
mit." Every sinner is the first cause, the cause un- 
caused, of his own sins. Hence his guilt is his own. 
The agency of Satan in giving a downward trend to hu- 
man nature in the fall of Adam is the occasion of the 
voluntary sins of his posterity. The removal of this 
proclivity to sin, called in theology original sin, or de- 



74 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



9. Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed 
abide th in him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God. 



pravity, through faith in the blood of the Son of God 
producing entire sanctification is the destruction of the 
works of the devil. These are summed up in "original 
sin/' which is their occasion. When men sin they in- 
dorse the devil's works and make them their own, from 
the guilt of which their only release is through the 
atonement in Christ as a conditional substitute for pun- 
ishment. 

9. "Whosoever is begotten of God." Literally "has 
been begotten/' implying that he still remains a child of 
God, his faith retaining the continuous efficacy of the 
divine birth. 

"Doeth no sin." Literally "is not committing sin." 
Says Athenagoras: "Know ye that those whose ideal 
standard of life is the character of God will never enter 
upon the purpose of even the least sin." 

"He cannot sin." Rather, "be sinning." A course 
of wilful sin is incompatible with continued sonship or 
likeness to God. Moral contradictions cannot co-exist 
in one person. He cannot be a thief and an honest man 
at the same time; neither can he be sinning and a true 
~hi]d of God at the same instant. Persistence in sin- 

tig extinguishes sonship or similarity to God, loving 
what He loves and hating what He hates. So long as 



I JOHN III. 



75 



love to God is the undiminished motive there can be no 
career of sin. But faith may become weak and love 
may decline. Then under the pressure of temptation 
the child of God may commit a single sin, as ii. 1 implies, 
and have recourse to the righteous Advocate with the 
Father, and thus retain his birthright in the kingdom of 
God. Or he may with Judas pass out of the light into 
so total an eclipse of faith as to enter upon a returnless 
course of sin entirely sundering him from the fam- 
ily of God, and enrolling him as a "son of perdition," a 
"child of the devil," whose characteristics he has per- 
manently taken on. Says Bishop Westcott: "The ideas 
of divine sonship and sin are mutually exclusive. As 
long as the relationship with God is real, sinful acts are 
but accidents." Sin in the proper acceptation of the 
term always implies the consent of the will, and there- 
fore can never be an accident. Yet it is possible that an 
improper word may leap suddenly from the tongue of 
a true child of God or a sinful act which does not pro- 
ceed from love may escape the will, while the deliberate 
purpose is righteous, and the ruling principle is love. 
This explains the dangerous phrase, "accidental sin," an 
isolated act contrary to the tenor of a holy life. This 
comes very near to Wesley's definition of an infirmity, 
an omission, or inadvertent wrong act springing from 
some weakness, or defect in a person whose character is 
rooted in love to God and man. Says Augustine: 



76 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



10. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children 
of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, 
neither he that loveth not his brother. 



"There is a certain sin which he who has been born of 
God cannot commit, and because this is not committed 
the rest are excused. What is this sin? It is to do con- 
trary to the command of Christ, contrary to the New 
Testament." So far as love, the new commandment 
(John xiii. 34) is the determining element in Christian 
character, Augustine agrees with Wesley that a thou- 
sand infirmities, errors of judgment and so called sins of 
ignorance may consist with perfect love, and are daily 
covered by the blood of Christ. 

10. "In this the children of God are manifest." 
They are known by their victory over sin. Absence of 
sinning is their characteristic mark. "The children of 
the devil" are known by sinning. They who by evil 
conduct take on a likeness to the devil are called in this 
unique phrase children of the devil. 

"Doeth not righteousness." This negation of doing 
implies that a Christian cannot be passive; he must be 
active in deed and in word. A nominal Christian is a 
delusion. "To do righteousness is a necessity for him 
who has been born of God." 

"He that loveth not his brother"— his spiritual 
brother who wears, at least in outline, the image of 



I JOHN III. 



77 



11. For this is the message which ye heard from the beginning, 
that we should love one another: 



Christ whom no one can love while failing to love him 
who bears His image, whether rich or poor, learned or 
ignorant, white or black. "If you fail to possess love 
and have everything else, nothing is profitable to thee. 
If you have not other things, have love and you have 
fulfilled the law." (Augustine.) Righteousness is the 
fulfilment of the divine law in its requirement of duties 
to God and to man. Holiness is conformity to the di- 
vine character. Perfect love is the root and loftiest 
embodiment of both righteousness and holiness. 

11. "This is the message." The mandatory an- 
nouncement. "That we love." In order that we love 
one another. Love is not merely the content of the mes- 
sage, but its purpose to incite self-sacrificing love in the 
hearts of believers. Christ's incarnation, life, preach- 
ing, example and death all aim to implant in human 
hearts that love which proves its genuineness by self- 
sacrifice. A self-indulgent disciple of Christ is a con- 
tradiction. 

"Heard from the beginning." Of Christ's public 
teaching. "If the world hateth you." The "if" does 
not intimate a doubt; it assumes a fact. The em- 
phatic word in the original is "hateth." In his banish- 
ment to Patmos John had fathomed its meaning. 



78 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



12. not as Cain was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And 
wherefore slew he him? Because his works were evil, and his 
brother's righteous. 

13. Marvel not, brethren, if the world hateth you. 



12. "Not as Cain was of the evil one." The words 
"who" and "that" in the A. Y. are not in the Greek. 
John goes back of Adam and Eve, the first human sin- 
ners, to the first angelic sinner. Paid traces sin only to 
Adam. Cain manifested the Satanic spirit of hatred. 
Hence he belonged to the party of the wicked one, and, 
unless he sought forgiveness he will share the punish- 
ment of the devil. (Matt. xxv. 41.) 

"Slew his brother." This is a terrible verb, literally 
signifying "to cut the throat," to butcher as an animal. 

"And wherefore?" When one hates another because 
he has wronged him we call it a human sin, because it 
has an apparent reason; but hatred on account of right- 
eousness is diabolism. Augustine traces the temptation 
of Cain to envy, a human sin most closely bordering on 
the Satanic: "He who envies does not love. The sin of 
the devil is in him. . . . For he fell and envies him who 
stands, not because he wishes to hurl him down in order 
that he himself may stand, but in order that he may not 
fall alone." 

13. "Marvel not ... if the world hate you." 
In the order of the original the word "hate" is ac- 
centuated. That there should be hatred of holiness in- 



I JOHN III. 



79 



14. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because 
we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. 



stead of admiring love would awaken astonishment in 
all unfallen beings. This hatred of goodness shows the 
depth of the world's depravity. The "if" does not inti- 
mate a doubt, but rather it announces an existing fact. 
Hatred is the characteristic of the world. The connec- 
tion of thought is that terrible as Cain's history is, it 
is a syllabus of the history of the world, a conspectus of 
its follies and crimes. 

"Brethren." This endearing title is used nowhere else 
in this Epistle. In ii. 7 the K. V. has "beloved." 
"Brethren" expresses equality; "children," dependence; 
and "little ones," subordination, immaturity and proi- 
spective growth. 

"We know." The stress in the Greek is upon the 
pronoun "we." This knowledge is experimental and in- 
tuitive under the illumination of the Holy Spirit. The 
spiritual sensibilities feel the chill of the dead world — 
dead because of the absence of love divine, the principle 
of spiritual life. True Christians know that they have 
passed out of this deadly chill into the warmth and sun- 
shine of the new life. The verb is in the present tense. 
The new sphere' of being begins this side of the grave, as 
well as the knowledge that we have entered into it. 

14. "Death . . . life." There are but two 



80 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



spheres, death and life. There is no middle condition. 
All men are spiritually dead or spiritually alive. The 
dead will remain dead until they actively pass out of 
death by laying hold of Christ, the resurrection and the 
life. In probation the dead have the gracious ability to 
hear the voice of the Son of God, and "they that hear 
(obey) shall live." Persevering obedience is life ever- 
lasting. All power in the sinner to move Godward is of 
grace through the atonement, and this power is be- 
stowed upon all. (Luke xxiv. 47 ; Acts xvii. 30.) The 
other terms used by John which admit of no middle 
term are the truth and a lie, light and darkness, believ- 
ing and unbelief, or disobedience, children of God and 
children of the devil, love of the world and love of God, 
denying Christ and confessing Him. This use of mu- 
tually exclusive terms John learned from his Master, 
who declared that all who heard His words would build 
On the rock or on the sand, and would arise from their 
graves unto the resurrection of life or to the resurrection 
of damnation, and be separated into only two classes, the 
sheep and the goats, and receive one of two sentences, 
eternal life or eternal punishment. The destiny of the 
entire human family is represented by the wheat gath- 
ered into the garner and the tares thrust into the fur- 
nace, the good fish cast into vessels and the bad cast 
away, the wise virgins admitted to the feast and the fool- 
ish inexorably shut out, 



I JOHN III. 



8l 



15. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know 
that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. 



"The brethren." We know because we love. 
The heart is the organ of a more excellent knowl- 
edge than the intellect. Says Pascal, "The things of 
this world must be known in order to be loved, but the 
things of God must be loved in order to be known." 
"It is significant that the first title given to the body of 
believers after the ascension is 'the brethren' (Acts i. 
15, R. V.); and from this time onwards it occurs in all 
the groups of apostolic writings." (Westcott.) Be- 
cause of the many infirmities which obscure the glory of 
brotherly love Augustine says, "It flourishes as yet in 
the winter ; the root is vigorous, but its branches are dry. 
It is the inner pith which flourishes; within are the 
leaves and the fruit, but they await the summer." 
"Abideth in death." John assumes that Christian love 
and spiritual life are convertible terms, the absence of 
one proves the non-existence of the other. An ancient 
writer pertinently inquires, "If he who loves not abides 
in death, in what kind of a death does he who hates 
abide?" John has just emphasized the hatred of the 
world toward the Christian brotherhood. 

15. Every one that hateth." Irrespective of his 
Christian profession hatred of his brother in Christ is 
essentially murder, according to Christ's definition in 



82 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



16. Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: 
and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 



Matt. v. 22, the E. V. omitting "without cause." Bede 
intimates that this crime evidently lurks not only in him 
who pursues his brother with a sword, but also in him 
who pursues him with hatred. 

"Eternal life . . . abiding." This implies what 
is often expressed, that eternal life begins in the present 
life of the persevering believer. (John v. 24, vi. 40, 
47, 54; 1 John v. 11, 12.) These texts, proving the un- 
broken continuity of eternal life, broken by nothing ex- 
cept wilful sin, afford a convincing answer to the doc- 
trine of unconsciousness of the dead, for to have life is 
to have conscious well-being or happiness and not mere 
existence. 

16. "We know love." The Greek word is "agape," 
love founded on the perception of excellent qualities. 
This word belongs to the Bible exclusively. It was in- 
vented for use in Revelation because the other Greek 
words had been degraded and polluted. Eros was so 
completely debased as to be expressive of the foulest 
lust; and philia, the love of kindred and of marriage, 
had become too much tainted to express the holy and 
disinterested love of God for his Son, and of both for 
men created in the divine image. Love is evinced by 
self-denial. Love sacrifices itself to its object, while 



I JOHN III. 



83 



lust sacrifices its object to itself. "Laid down his life." 
This phrase in the New Testament is found only in 
John's writings. See John x. 11, 15, 17, xiii. 37, 38, xv. 
13. It may have been derived from the custom of lay- 
ing down the price of purchased goods, or for the ran- 
som of a captive. (Matt. xx. 28.) Another aspect of 
the voluntary surrender of life is that it was necessary 
in order to become conditionally the life of the world. 
(John vi. 51.) The life of the God-man could be ap- 
propriated by faith and become eternal in the believer 
only after death had set it free. 

"Our lives for the brethren." If by this means we 
can save them. This does not imply the possibility of 
one man's making an atonement for another, but rather 
the duty of interposing in his behalf even at the risk 
of losing his own life. When a promising convert in. 
whom John felt a deep interest backslid and at last 
joined a band of robbers, there is a credible tradition 
that John mounted a horse and went to the mountains 
to find and reclaim the young apostate, and tearfully 
and successfully entreated him, saying, "Could you be 
saved in no other way I would willingly undergo thy 
death as Jesus Christ underwent ours; in behalf of thee 
will I give my life." The argument seems to require 
that so great a sacrifice as life itself, if needful to save 
anybody, whether a brother in Christ, a Jew, or a pagan, 
is required of those who follow the example of Him who 



84 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



17. But whoso hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his brother 
in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the 
love of God abide in him ? 



died for us "while we were yet sinners." But since this 
is a test of our love which lies out of the way of common 
experience, John suggests a more practicable test in the 
next verse, the distribution of our money and goods for 
the relief of the needy brother. 

17. "But whoso hath the world's goods." Smaller 
sacrifices than that of the life will be often re- 
quired. How do we endure this every-day test in a 
world made poor by sin? 

"Shutteth up his compassion." A. V., "bowels." The 
ancients, who located the various mental activities in 
different bodily organs, ascribed pity to the bowels. 
Wherever it is thus figuratively used the B. V. has the 
mental affection instead of the physical organ as in Luke 
i. 78; 2 Cor. vi. 12, vii. 15; Phil. i. 8, ii. 1; Col. iii. 12; 
Philemon 7, 12, 20. To shut up the bowels is to 
tighten the purse strings against a fellow Christian in 
undoubted need of food, raiment, shelter or passage 
money to the distant home. This does not require indis- 
criminate giving to all those strangers known as tramps 
who, with narcotic or alcoholic breath, profess to be 
members of the same religious denomination with your- 
self. Says Wesley on Matt. v. 42, "Give and lend to 



I JOHN III. 



«5 



18. My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the 
tongue; but in deed and truth. 

19. Hereby shall we know that we are of the truth, and shall 
assure our heart before hirn, 



any so far (but no farther, for God never contradicts 
Himself) as is consistent with thy engagements to thy 
creditors, thy family, and the household of faith." 

Hence St. John's test of a true Christian is sometimes 
quite complicated and difficult of application, and it may 
in some instances sorely distress a highly sensitive Chris- 
tian. For the relief of such the twentieth verse was 
written. 

18. "Neither with the tongue," which is here 
marked by the article as the special instrument of hypo- 
critical love. Love "in word" may be genuine, but too 
weak to prompt to self-sacrificing acts. 

19. "Hereby shall we know." The future tense 
implies a condition soon to be expressed in the 
next verse. "That we are of the truth." That 
we have appropriated Christ who is the truth, the reality 
in contrast with all illusions; the antitype answering to 
all the Old Testament types, the substance as opposed 
to all shadows; the Life standing over against all 
kinds of deaths, whether physical or spiritual. To be 
of the truth is the same as to be a child of God, which 
is a concrete statement of the identical fact. 

"And shall assure our hearts." We shall persuade 



86 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



20. whereinsoever our heart condemn us ; because God is greater 
than our heart, and knoweth all things. 



our hearts is the Greek, in the sense of "still and tran- 
quillize their fears and misgivings." 

20. "Whereinsoever our hearts condemn us" 
because we are in fellowship with God, and that fact 
assures us of His sovereign mercy, as implied in the 
words, "because God is greater." "The context re- 
quires that God's supreme sovereignty over the whole 
man should be regarded under the aspect of love, as 
exercised for the calming of human doubts. The sup- 
position that 'greater' means more searching and au- 
thoritative than the heart is at variance with the tenor of 
the passage and also with the natural sense of 'greater.' " 
(Bishop Westcott.) The perplexities which arise in a 
sensitive Christian conscience in the matter of adminis- 
tering to the necessities of saints have already been 
spoken of in our note on verse 17. Says Jelf, "A Chris- 
tian heart burdened with a sense of its own unworthi- 
ness forms an unfavorable opinion of the state of the 
soul and pronounces against its salvation. If we are 
conscious of practically loving the brethren, we can ad- 
duce this as evidence of the contrary, and give the heart 
ground to change its opinion, and to reassure itself. 
Any one who has had experience of the doubts and fears 
which spring up in a believer's heart from time to time, 



I JOHN III. 



87 



21. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness 
toward God; 

of whether he is or is not in a state of condemnation, 
will feel the need and the efficacy of this test of faith 
and means of assurance." 

This exegesis proceeds upon the supposition that a 
morbid or unenlightened conscience may erroneously 
condemn itself in some sophistical or false reasoning re- 
specting some question, especially in withholding alms 
from a doubtful applicant professing to be a Christian. 
Under such circumstances the accusing conscience may 
find relief in the thought that God, who in His greatness 
reads the secrets of the heart, sees that the intention 
of that heart is to love God supremely and his fellow- 
man as himself. "According to the explanation given, 
we are supposed to have in the consciousness of brotherly 
love the means whereby we may allay the reproaches of 
our conscience. The expression because God is greater' 
must, as containing matter of consolation, exhibit not 
the greater strictness of God, but His greater tender- 
ness." (Haupt.) It is true that the gentleness of God 
is not in all cases regarded as a valid ground of consola- 
tion, but it is such when we consider the divine om- 
niscience scanning the motives of those weakened and 
errant yet true Christians who have mistakenly made 
themselves worse than they really are. 

21. "Beloved." An appropriate form of address 



88 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

22. and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because 



where brotherly love is the special topic, and the fears, 
doubts and questionings of Christians anxious to ascer- 
tain their true standing before God's law are under con- 
sideration. 

"Condemn us not." This does not result from insen- 
sibility to the guilt of sin and a light estimate of its hei- 
nousness,nor does it imply sinlessness, a term strictly ap- 
plicable to no man on whom forgiven sin has left its scar 
in the form of crippled moral powers. But it does in- 
clude conscious pardon and a sense of sonship to God 
through "the Spirit of the adoption crying in the heart, 
Abba, Father," imparting peace and assurance. 

"We have boldness," as in iv. 17; Acts iv. 13, 29, 
31; Eph. iii. 12; Phil. i. 20; 1 Tim. iii. 13; 
Heb. x. 19. The Greek is a word composed of two, 
"all" and "say" — express all your wants without reserve. 
"Toward God." The thought is of the freedom of a du- 
tiful son in his approach to his loving father, and not of 
the reluctance of the accused to appear before his judge. 

22. So closely connected is this verse with the twen- 
ty-first that only a comma should separate them, as in 
Westcott and Hort, Alford and others. We would call 
attention to the fact that this verse is not a description 
of saving faith, but rather the faith of assurance. A 



t JOHN III. 



8 9 



we keep his commandments, and do the things that are pleasing 
in his sight. 



penitent sinner seeking forgiveness cannot exercise a 
faith, which is stimulated by reflecting on a previous 
obedient life, for he comes confessing that he is ungodly 
unto Him "who justifieth the ungodly." (Rom. iv. 5.) 

"Whatsoever we ask we receive." Both, verbs are in 
the present tense, denoting what is continuous and habit- 
ual in the actual present experience of believers. With- 
out exception every prayer is answered and every re- 
quest is granted. Says Augustine, "Let us note a differ- 
ence between God's answers. For we find certain per- 
sons not answered according to their wish are answered 
in a way which promotes their best good, and others 
answered as they desire are not answered according to 
their best good." 

"Because we keep His commandments." "Obe- 
dience is not alleged as the ground, but as the 
assurance, of the fulfilment. The answer to prayer is 
given not as a reward for meritorious action, but 
because the prayer itself rightly understood coin- 
cides with God's will. Comp. John viii. 29, xi. 42. 
The sole object of the believer is to do thoroughly the 
part which has been assigned to him; his petitions are 
directed to this end and so are necessarily granted. 
Comp. John xv. 7." (Bishop Westcott.) This is only 



90 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

another way of saving, "We know that God heareth not 
sinners ; but if any man be a worshipper of God and do 
His will, him He heareth." (John ix. 31.) Jesus 
Christ testifies to the same truth, "If ye abide in me, 
and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and 
it shall be done unto you." (John xv. 7.) Believers 
who are in perfect accord with God's will, will ask only 
for what is in His will, and this they will infallibly re- 
ceive. God answers all the real prayer that is offered, 
and is waiting for more. In explaining the apparent 
theological difficulty in this verse that good works are 
the meritorious ground on which favorable answers to 
prayer are given, Dean Alford says, "Out of Christ 
there are no good works at all; entrance into Christ is 
not won nor merited by them. In Christ, every work 
done of faith is good and pleasing to God. The doing 
of such works is the working of the life of Christ in us; 
they are its sign, they are its fruits. Whatever is at- 
tributed to them as an efficient cause is attributed not 
to us, but to Him whose fruits they are." 

"Things pleasing." A fragment of the gospel de- 
scriptive of Christ's perfect accord with His Father. 
"Because the things pleasing to Him I always do, is 
quoted by John as descriptive of the actual life of be- 
lievers while in this world. It is true that 'always' is 
not expressed, but it is implied in continuous tense, Ve 
are doing.' " 



I JOHN III. 



91 



23. And this is his commandment, that Ave should believe in the 
name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he 
gave us commandment. 

24. And he that keepeth his commandments abideth in him, and 



23. "And this is His commandment." Note the sin- 
gular. This summary of all God's previous commands, 
supreme love to God, appears in this last restatement 
of His law in the form of the obligation to believe on 
the name of His adorable Son, and love to our neighbor 
as to ourselves is found in these words, "and love one 
another." 

This last statement of God's law made for all the com- 
ing ages magnifies faith, the first place in this Epistle 
in which it is mentioned. Here we have a complete 
answer to those contradictory and shallow people who 
insist that if we do what is about right it does not mat- 
ter what we believe. Rather it is necessary to believe 
in order to do what is right. 

"On the name of His Son." The name stands for the 
whole personality, His life, miracles, discourses, death, 
resurrection, ascension and gift of the Paraclete. True 
faith lays hold of Him as the only Saviour, casting away 
every Other plea. "The full title, 'His Son, Jesus 
Christ,' is a compressed creed, the whole sum of the 
manifold revelations gathered up together so as to form 
one supreme revelation." (Westcott.) 

24. In this verse we have a general return to the 



92 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the 
Spirit which he gave us. 



keynote of the Epistle, abide in me, just as the former 
part of the Epistle, ii. 28, concluded. Brotherly love 
is the most conspicuous example and proof of two in- 
separable facts, obedience to God and abiding in Him. 
Abiding in God is not a quiescent and passive state. It 
is a strenuous and continuous effort first to ascertain 
God's commands and then to do them. Such a person 
abides in God. This mutual abiding shows the strength 
of the Christian's fortress and the wealth of his privilege. 
The Omnipotent dwells in the believer, and the believer 
dwells in the Gibraltar of God's strength. Says Bede, 
"Let God be a house for thee and thou shalt be a house 
for God; abide in God and let God abide in thee." This 
mutual indwelling is by the Holy Spirit. The believer 
is conscious of His incoming as the witness of adoption, 
and in single experiences or crises in the spiritual life, 
such as a sudden and perfect release from some old bond- 
age, and most notably in the act of entire sanctification 
and in that perfect love of which this act is the gate- 
way. This assures the advanced Christian beyond a 
doubt of God's delightful fellowship. "By the Spirit 
which He gave us." This is the first' mention of the 
Spirit in the Epistle. It is remarkable that the adjec- 
tive "Holy" joined to Spirit never is found in John's 



I JOHN III. 



93 



Epistles nor in Kevelation. The time when the Spirit 
was given was not limited to pentecost. Every one 
may by faith claim a personal pentecost, as marked in 
individual experience as the day of pentecost was in the 
history of the apostolic church. 



CHAPTER- IV. 



The mention of the Spirit, the pentecostal gift, as 
decisive of the question whether God abides in believers, 
suggests that a safeguard should be set up against false 
spirits who would lead them astray. These are not all 
of them disembodied, and invisible like Satan. Some 
of them walk the earth as living religious teachers. 
These must be tested to prove that they are in sympathy 
with God and are trustworthy expounders of His truth. 
Other evil spirits are unseen assuming "specious forms 
of ambition, power, honor, knowledge, as distinguished 
from earthly and sensual enjoyments. All such spirits 
are partial revelations of the one spirit of evil which be- 
come (so to speak) embodied in men." (Westcott.) 

d. iv. l-v. 12. Zbc Sources of Sonsblp : possession of 
tbe Spirit as sbown bg Confession of 
tbe IFncarnatlon, 

1. The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error (iv. 1-6) 

2. Love is the Mark Of the Children of Him who is 

Love (iv. 7-21). 

3. Faith is the Source of Love, the Victory over th. 

World, and the Possession of Life (v. 1-12). 
94 



I JOHN IV. 



95 



1. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, 



1. ''Prove the spirits." One element of our proba- 
tion consists in the exercise of our powers of discern- 
ment, in discriminating between the influences which 
are brought to bear upon us. The devil wears many 
different masks. He conquers by deceit. It is our 
duty to cultivate the ability to detect the actor behind 
the mask. This ability is one element of Christian per- 
fection, according to Heb. v. 14, "But solid food is for 
the perfect, even those who by reason of use (habit) 
have their (internal) senses exercised to discern good 
and evil." (R. Y. margin.) 

The mental inertia which refuses to form this habit 
of spiritual insight is next in culpability to total indif- 
ference in the presence of moral good and moral evil, 
holiness and sin, soliciting our choice and determining 
our character. There is no evading responsibility at 
this point. The fact that "discerning of spirits" is one 
of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit excuses no one 
from the constant exercise of his intellectual discrimina- 
tion between good and evil. 

"Many false prophets." Or preachers of religious 
errors. The false prophets in the Old Testament come 
to us modern readers branded as false, but in their day 
they were not thus branded, but came to the people as 
true arid inspired. It is so is our times. Many dis- 



96 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone 
out into the world. 

2. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit which con- 
fesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 



credit the true prophets and cleave to the false. Paul 
encountered rival apostles who publicly questioned the 
genuineness of his apostleship and turned his converts 
away from the truth and from Christ its incarnation. 
In no age has this class of teachers been extinct. They 
are to-day fulfilling Christ's prediction showing "great 
signs and wonders" (Matt. xxiv. 24), especially in the 
line of so-called miraculous healing of the sick and mak- 
ing the dead to appear in material form. Bishop Weist- 
cott suggests that John had in mind "the great outbreak 
of the Gentile pseudo-Christianity which is vaguely 
spoken of as Gnosticism, the endeavor to separate the 
'ideas' of the faith from the facts of the historic re- 
demption." This miscalled "philosophy of religion," 
which is a series of imaginative speculations respecting 
the origin of the universe, and the independent and eter- 
nal principles of existence, holiness existing in spirit and 
sin inherent in matter and never touching spirit, is the 
real key to this Epistle. 

2. "Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." Here both 
the A. V. and K. V. have failed to give the exact Greek, 
"confesseth Jesus Christ, come in the flesh." Christ is 
the object confessed, and not some fact relating to Him. 



I JOHN iv. 97 
3. and every spirit which confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and 



The confession required is a person and not an abstract 
doctrine. "The gospel centres in a person and not in 
any truth, even the greatest, about the Person." It is 
not the confession of the incarnation, but of the Saviour 
incarnate, the pledge and pattern of man completely re- 
deemed, soul and body bearing the image of the glorified 
God-man. The believer who thus savingly apprehends 
and publicly confesses the historic Christ, not as a phan- 
tom man, as the Gnostics taught, but a real man, the in- 
carnation of the uncreated Logos who in the beginning 
was with God and was God, is of God, born from above. 
"Faith if it is real must declare itself." This text does 
not teach that an orthodox creed is saving, unless it has 
produced a truly penitent heart trusting in the divine 
and human Christ confessed, and relying on Him alone 
for salvation. Throughout the Epistle the emphasis 
laid upon "in the flesh," as denoting Christ's real hu- 
manity, is manifestly directed against those docetic 
Gnostics who denied that He was a real man. This 
they did to avoid the objection to the inherence of sin in 
all matter; because this would make Jesus Christ sinful, 
for He had a real body. To meet this objection these 
philosophers resorted to the denial of His real body. 
3. "Confesseth not Jesus." Overwhelming evi- 



98 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



this is the spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it 
cometh; and now it is in the world already. 



dence, including the Ii. V., requires the omission of the 
words "Christ is come in the flesh," as an obvious inter- 
polation to complete the antithesis. However orthodox 
one's theological creed may be, he does not really and 
savingly confess Christ till he enthrones Him in his 
heart as both Saviour and Lord, his reason bowing to 
His authority as an infallible teacher, and his will sub- 
mitting to Him as his supreme sovereign, the Grod-man. 
The marginal reading, "annulleth Jesus," supported by 
some ancient authorities, is regarded by most modern 
experts to be a mistake arising from some traditional 
saying of John. The same may be said of another read- 
ing, "the Spirit which separates Jesus," i. e., sunders 
Him into two persons, one divine and the other human. 
It has little or no support in the Greek manuscripts, and 
rests chiefly, if not solely, on the Vulgate version, the 
Roman Catholic standard. "The denial of the Incar- 
nation is in fact the denial of that which is characteristic 
of the Christian faith, the true union of God and man." 
(Bishop Westcott.) Since it was love that prompted 
the Divine Logos to become flesh, the denial of this fact, 
as Augustine suggests, is a sign of the absence of love 
in him who denies. 

"Is not of God." There are apparently two classes, 



I JOHN IV. 



99 



those who deny the Incarnation and (iii. 10) those who 
do not practise righteousness, but they exhibit two nega- 
tive signs of one class. He who denies the Incarnation, 
having thrust from himself the strongest motive to holy 
living, will fail to practise that genuine, evangelical 
righteousness which Christ exemplifies and requires. 

"Spirit of antichrist." There being no middle class 
between the just and the unjust, the friends of Christ 
and his foes, it must follow that all who are not His 
friends are actuated by the spirit antagonistic to Christ, 
the spirit of antichrist. See ii. 18, note. 

"Whereof ye have heard." As a part of the Gospel 
message (Matt. xxiv. 5, 24) and of apostolic prediction. 
(Acts xx. 30; 1 Tim. iv. 1.) These general warnings 
respecting false Christs and heretical teachers are by 
John vividly condensed in a typical adversary, called by 
Paul "that man of sin." (2 Thess. ii. 3.) This antag- 
onist represents not merely unbelievers, but also wilful 
and conscious perverters of the gospel. Those who 
have extreme abhorrence of popery render the prep- 
osition "anti" instead of. Thus they find in anti- 
christ a forewarning of one who will profess to stand 
in Christ's place clothed with His authority to for- 
give sin and to rule the church as "the vicegerent of 
God." It is certain that John was divinely inspired to 
describe the seed out of which the papacy has budded, 
blossomed and borne its baneful fruit. This is implied 
LofC. 



IOO HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



4. Ye are of God, my little children, and have overcome them: 
because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. 



in the words "even now already is it in the world." In 
seed form the fulfilment of the prophecy had come be- 
fore Christians were looking for it. 

4. "Ye are of God." "Ye," as contrasted with the 
world and with professed believers who were not en- 
dowed with spiritual discernment because they had not 
received and retained "the anointing of the Holy One" 
(ii. 20, 24, 27). There are in John's writings three 
phrases to express the relation of believers to God: to 
be begotten of God, to be of God, and to be a child of 
God. They occur scores of times, implying a new life 
in the earth. 

"Have overcome them." The false prophets who 
would seduce you from your loyalty to Christ are per- 
manently conquered by John's hearers, as the perfect 
tense implies. See ii. 14, v. 4; Kev. ii. 7, 11, 17, 26; iii. 
5, 12, 21 ; xii. 11, to all of which John xvi. 33 is the key. 
"The ground and assurance of the victory of Christians 
lie in the Power by which they are inspired." (West- 
cott.) This power is applied by the mutual indwelling 
of God and the believer (iii. 24, iv. 16; John xv. 4). 

"Greater is He that is in you." The Holy Spirit 
whose indwelling is maintained by an uninterrupted, 
unwavering trust in the living glorified Christ. 



I JOHN IV. 



IOI 



5. They are of the world: therefore speak they as of the world, 
and the world heareth them. 

6. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he who is 



"Than he that is in the world." The devil, whose 
children the wicked are (iii. 10; Matt. xiii. 38, xxiii. 15; 
Acts xiii. 10). In their case there is also a mutual in- 
dwelling, for the world lieth in the wicked one (v. 19), 
and the unbelieving and impenitent are "in the world" 
as a baneful and dominating power. 

5. "They are of the world." The false prophets, the 
organs of the devil, are not merely of the earth, as all 
men are, but they are of the world — a phrase expressing 
the characteristics of all who are separated from God 
(ii. 16; John viii. 23, xv. 19, xvii. 14, 16, xviii. 36). 

"They speak of the world." The character of their 
speech and the character of their hearers are determined 
by their own character." (Westcott.) This is according 
to the adage, "like priest like people." An unspiritual 
pulpit will make unspiritual pews. 

6. "We are of God." Having spoken of Christian 
hearers in verse 4, John now speaks of Christian teach- 
ers whose anointed vision discerns the true message 
which they bring to men from the lips of God. This is 
received in its true character by him who has the ex- 
perimental knowledge of God and by all who sincerely 
desire such knowledge. "The world listens to those 



102 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



not of God heareth us not. By this we know the spirit of truth, 
and the spirit of error. 

7. Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and 
every one that loveth is begotten of God. and knoweth God. 



who express its own thoughts; the Christian listens to 
those who teach him more of God. The readiness to 
hear springs from a living, growing knowledge, which 
welcomes and appropriates the truth." The phrase, 
"He who is not of God," does not exclude true moral 
responsibility. He has determined his own character 
by the perverse attitude of his own will, by which he 
has shut out "the Spirit of truth," who reveals the truth 
and enables the seeking soul to see it. In the absence 
of the Spirit of truth, the evil spirit, the father of lies ? 
fills the empty and darkened soul with various forms of 
religious error. Hence the culpability of unbelief. 

"By this we know." "This power of recognition be- 
longs to all believers. It is not limited to teachers by 
an emphatic pronoun as before." That the apostles 
have the "Spirit of truth" is proved by the fact that they 
who have been born of the Spirit hear and obey them, 
while the false prophets show that they have the spirit 
of error because the world hears them with sympathy 
and satisfaction. 

7. "Every one that loveth" with evangelical, pure, 
unselfish affection "is begotten of God." This ex- 
cludes sexual love and the merely natural love of kin- 



I JOHN IV. IO3 
S. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 



dred. Some who have never heard of Christ, such as 
Socrates and Marcus Aurelius, have exhibited Christian 
philanthropy, which evinces that they were born of God. 
They had the spirit of faith, i. e., the disposition to em- 
brace the object of saving faith, Christ, were He pre- 
sented to them; and they had the purpose of righteous- 
ness, the disposition to conform to Christian ethics when 
revealed to them. "Such are saved through the his- 
toric Christ, though they know him not." (Wesley.) 
They have the essential Christ, i. e., the outlines of His 
moral character. 

8. "Knoweth not God." Literally "knew Him not" 
when they professed to know Him by receiving baptism 
or by testimony of the lips. 

"God is love." This is more than to say God is 
amiable. Only if He is love in His essential being, is 
the statement true, that to have no personal, experi- 
mental knowledge of love is to have no real knowledge 
of God. The Gnostics were doubtless in John's mind, 
who knew much about God, but they did not by a heart 
experience know God, for instead of loving those hum- 
ble brethren who were not their equals in intellectual 
attainments they treated them with an arrogant and 
heartless contempt. "They had recognized that 'God is 
spirit,' and to some extent that 'God is light;' for they 



104 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

9. Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath 



knew Him to be an immaterial Being and the highest 
Intelligence; but they had wholly failed to appreciate 
that God is love." (Dr. A. Plummer.) The heathen 
regard God as terrible, whose fierce anger needs to be 
averted with offerings. The Jews believed that He was 
just and jealous, and, possibly, merciful, whose inmost 
being was to them a mystery beyond what was revealed 
in His name Jehovah, "I am that I am." To the re- 
generate alone is He known as Love. 

Says Augustine, "If nothing whatever throughout 
the other pages of the Scriptures were said in praise of 
love, and this one thing only were all we were, told by 
the voice of the Spirit of God, Tor God is love,' nothing 
more ought we to require." 

9. "Herein was the love of God manifested/' and in 
John iii. 16, "For God so loved the world," Bishop 
"Westcott says, "The revelation of the divine love is re- 
ferred to an absolute (eternal) moment, both in relation 
to the Son and also to the world and to men." God's 
love is made known chiefly through redemption, which 
is a definite act. The gift of the Son was absolutely 
free and spontaneous. If it had been of necessity it 
would not be a proof of love. 

"In us." It was love towards us, but the form of this 
phrase shows that God's love is revealed not only in His 



I JOHN IV. 



I05 



sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live 
through him. 



Son, but also in us as a transparent medium. "The 
Christian shares the life of Christ and so becomes him- 
self a secondary sign of God's love." (Westcott.) The 
new creation is a more clear and expressive revelation 
of love than the first creation: "For God, who com- 
manded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined 
in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the 
glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ." 

"His only begotten Son." Shallow and weak indeed 
is the Unitarian exegesis — "best beloved son." It is 
in vain that extreme liberalism teaches that all men are 
incarnations of God in a lower degree than Jesus. 
"Only begotten" denotes unique sonship, an existence 
unshared which is grounded in God's nature, while the 
existence of all men and of all things is grounded in 
God's will. This is the difference between the genera- 
tion of the Son outside of time limits, "before the world 
was," and the creation of the universe by His own voli- 
tion. "Christ is the One only Son, the One to whom the 
title belongs in a sense completely unique and singular, 
as distinguished from that in which there are many 
children of God. (John i. 12-14.) 

"That we might live." Activity, not safety, is accen- 
tuated. 



106 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



10. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, 
and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 



"Through Him." Christ is the efficient cause of 
spiritual life. He lives in the true believer. (Chap, 
v. 12, 20; Gal. ii. 20; 2 Cor. iv. 10-12; Col. iii. 4.) He 
is the substance of the Christian's life. (Phil. i. 21.) 
Also the aim of his life. (Eom. vi. 10, 11, xiv. 8; Gal. 
ii. 19.) 

10. "In this is love." Keal love in its origin is not 
human, but divine. Its source is not a blind impulse, 
but an intelligent movement of God's free will pitying 
a sinful race and approving those who trust in His Son, 
whom He sent into a fallen world. In this act God's 
love reached its climax. Human love at best is only 
responsive; it is never original and spontaneous. It is 
never strictly disinterested, as the love of God is. The 
theology that requires of mankind such love is too high 
for the holiest men and angels to reach. 

The great secret of God's method with men is that 
He loves them into loving. There is no other force so 
mighty as love, and nothing else so contagious. It is 
the royal law of the Christian life, because it has been 
the regal force in God's dealing with His children. 
Having been won to the Father by the Father's love, 
the child is bound by the very nature of the new life to 
show the same love to others. 



I JOHN IV. 



"* f And this is just as practical a law for the conduct of 
home. The love of a mother for her child is the great 
example and sanction of the love of the children one 
for another. Here in the home it is an indisputable 
fact that we are loved into loving. And business, which 
is supposed to be the sphere least subject to the sway of 
altruistic law, is no less subject to the general principle. 
Every employer can do more by love, which is always 
just, than he can by the rigorous enforcement of definite 
rules. Workmen are loved into loving the work they 
do and into placing the interests of their employers first. 
In fact, there is no department of our complex life 
which is not subject to this spiritual and natural law — 
we love because He first loved us." 

"The propitiation for our sins." See on chap. ii. 
1 . The Greek word (hilasmos) occurs in the Eew Tes- 
tament only in these two passages, and without refer- 
ence to the person to whom it is offered. The same is 
true of the corresponding verb found only twice in the 
!New Testament. The Scriptural conception is not that 
of appeasing one who is personally angry, but rather 
that of altering the conditions which prevent pardon and 
raise up an inevitable obstacle to fellowship. These are 
two: God's relation as moral governor and protector of 
His law, and the natural inclination of fallen man to 
commit sin. God as the executive of law cannot by 
mere prerogative pardon the sinner, nor is a sinful being 



IOS HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one an- 
other. 



fit for fellowship with his holy Creator. The propitia- 
tion offered by Christ declares God's righteousness while 
pardoning the ungodly that repent and trust in the Son 
of God, receiving Him as both Saviour and Lord. Such 
are at the same time forgiven and regenerated, or made 
new creatures. Thus both the obstacles to acceptance 
are removed. 

Such phrases as "propitiating God" and "God being 
reconciled" are foreign to New Testament diction. 

11. "If God so loved us." Here "if" does not inti- 
mate a doubt. It is nearly equivalent to "since." Com- 
pare John xiii. 14, "If I then . . . have washed your 
feet." 

"We also ought." As spiritual children of God we 
must honor Him by representing His moral attributes 
and by following His example in loving those whom He 
loves. See iii. 16, note. The obligation which God's 
love here lays upon us is not that we should love 
Him in return, as we would naturally expect, but that 
we should "love one another." It was when Jesus was 
"knowing that the Father had given all things into His 
hands and that He was come from God, and was going 
to God," that He put on the livery of a servant and 
washed His disciples' feet. His followers should learn 



I JOHN IV. 



I09 



12. No man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one 
another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us: 



that the spiritual nobility implied by adoption into the 
family of God imposes corresponding obligation. The 
higher the rank the more service to humanity is rightly 
expected. 

12. "God hath no man ever yet beheld." In all the 
history of the saints from Enoch to John the Baptist, 
however close their fellowship with God, no one had 
beheld His essential Being. The various theophanies 
of the Old Testament were not His real Person, but only 
fringes of His robe. But faith is a good substitute for 
sight. Says Bede, "Where we are not yet permitted 
to enjoy the Divine vision what comfort we experience!" 
For the invisible God is not only near to us, but to the 
full believer in Christ, "He is in us, the Life of our 
lives." 

"God abideth in us." He is in the genuine believer 
not as a stranger in an inn lodging for a night, but He 
is a permanent inhabitant. This fact should banish 
fear, begird with strength, afford unbroken peace and 
unfailing joy, and tireless activity in promoting His 
glory on the earth. We may not always be conscious 
of the Holy Spirit abiding within, but there will be 
periods of wonderful spiritual illumination and crises of 
indescribable joy. Professor Phelps calls it "almost in- 



IIO HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



13. hereby know we that we abide in him, and he in us, be- 
cause he hath given us of his Spirit. 



tolerable joy." "His love is perfected in us." It is 
our love toward God which is here spoken of as per- 
fected. God's love is always perfect. To say that 
God's love for us is perfected is to imply that His love 
may be imperfect, and that His love is not perfected 
until Christians "love one another." This would make 
a Divine perfection depend on a human volition. "We 
have perfect love when the Spirit sheds abroad the love 
of God to such a degree as to exclude everything antag- 
onistic thereto. The claim that we have perfect love to 
God is manifestly erroneous if love toward our fellow 
Christians is absent. Love is the only particular in 
which perfection can be predicated of man marred and 
dwarfed by sin, and that love is shed abroad in the heart 
by the Holy Spirit (Rom. v. 5), the author of that cir- 
cumcision of heart requisite for loving God with all the 
heart and all the soul. (Deut. xxx. 6.) In chap. ii. 5 the 
sign of the perfect love of God in the believer is his esti- 
mate of His revelation and his vigilance in obeying its 
commandments. Here it is love to one another. 
Evangelical perfection may consist with many intellect- 
ual infirmities. 

13. "Hereby know we." Love to man is a proof that 
God abides within us, just as the stream argues the exist- 



I JOHN IV. 



Ill 



ence of the fountain. This Epistle of John is as full of 
tests of character as a complete chemical laboratory is 
amply furnished with tests of substances. Hence the 
constant occurrence of the phrases "we know" and 
"hereby we know." See iii. 24, iv. 13, 15, 16, v. 20, 
ii. 5; John vi. 56, xiv. 20, xv. 5. 

"That we abide in Him and He in us." Says Basil, 
"The Spirit is the place for the saints; and the saint is a 
place appropriate to the Spirit." Prof. Austin Phelps 
declares that next to the mystery of Three Persons in 
One Xature is the mystery of the Divine Spirit abiding 
in the human spirit. This mutual abiding, a favorite 
doctrine with John, is an expression of the most intimate 
and delightful fellowship. It is a strong incidental 
proof of the supreme divinity of Christ that he is fre- 
quently spoken of as one of the parties to this mutual 
abiding (John vi. 56, xiv. 20, xv. 5, xvii. 26); for no 
created personality can enter into and abide in another. 

'He hath given us of His Spirit." The gift of the 
Spirit is the proof that God abides in believers. His 
testimony is direct and immediate when he cries in the 
heart, "Abba, Father" (Gal. iv. 6), or teaches us to utter 
the same joyful cry. (Pom. viii. 15.) His testimony is 
indirect and mediate when from the observed fruit of 
the Spirit (Gal. v. 22, 23) we infer the abiding presence 
of the Father and the Son. (John xiv. 23.) The direct 
witness of the Spirit being the ground of the inferential 



112 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



14. And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath 
sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. 

15. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God 
abideth in him, and he in God. 



witness must precede it. Christians are sometimes said 
to receive of the Spirit and sometimes they are said to 
receive the Spirit. (Gal. iii. 2, 3, 5, iv. 6.) Only the 
latter is true of Christ. He has a capacity commen- 
surate with the Spirit's infinitude. 

14. "We have seen." "We" is emphatis as in i. 1-5 
and designates those who had been eyewitnesses of the 
Incarnate Son of God working miracles, uttering match- 
less parables, interpreting the law of God with an au- 
thority equal to its Divine Giver on Mt. Sinai, and ex- 
hibiting a sinless character amid contradictions, insults, 
and persecutions, thus proving his claim to be the only 
begotten Son of God. While no man has beheld the 
Father, some did see in Jesus Christ the revelation of 
God. 

"The Saviour of the world." He is provisionally the 
Saviour of all men. But he is really the Saviour of only 
those that accept Him by faith. (John iii. 16.) All who 
hear His gospel and do not obey it will be punished with 
an everlasting sentence. (Matt. xxv. 46; 2 Thess. i. 8, 
9.) The Jews were not expecting a Saviour of the 
world, but a Deliverer of their nation only. 

15. "Confess that Jesus is the Son of God," See 



I JOHN IV. 113 
16. And we know and have believed the love which God hath in 



verse 2 for the key to the meaning. It does not express 
the declaration of a fact, but the public recognition of 
the Person of Christ as the Divine Saviour, and submis- 
sion to Him as Lord, and trust in Him for salvation. 
He who with the heart thus acknowledges Him, and 
with tongue confesses Him, is said to have Him and to 
have eternal life. "He that confesseth the Son hath the 
Father also." 

"Abideth in Him and he in God." This reciprocal 
indwelling in God (iii. 24, iv. 13, 15, 16), and in Christ 
(John vi. 56, xiv. 20, xv. 5), implies the most intimate 
fellowship of the believer with the Father, and with the 
Son, in whom He is revealed. The conditions of this fel- 
lowship are love, confession and obedience. The effects 
are fruitfulness, assurance and guilelessness. The sign 
is the possession of the Holy Spirit who sheds abroad 
love in the heart and inspires the filial feeling, crying 
Abba, Father. 

16. "And we." This pronoun is emphatic and denotes 
all "who can speak from the fulness of Christian ex- 
perience as confessors of Christ." (Bishop "Westcott.) 
Young converts who cannot say with confidence "we 
know," should be encouraged by the promise, "Then 
shall ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord." 

"Know and have believed." Sometimes knowl- 



114 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

us. God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and 
God abideth in him. 

edge is the ground of faith, as the banker's acquaintance 
with the good character of the borrower is his reason 
for trusting him; and sometimes faith is the path to 
knowledge, as when the child believing the teacher 
comes to know the alphabet. Paul speaks of the unity of 
faith and knowledge, i. e., faith ends in knowledge. (Eph. 
iv. 13.) This is the genesis of all spiritual knowledge. A 
general acquaintance with Christ and self-surrender to 
him prepares us for that appropriating faith in his prom- 
ise of the Paraclete whose office it is to glorify the living 
Christ revealing Him in the heart. As a practical 
truth in the spiritual realm, believing precedes knowing. 
Then in turn knowledge lays the foundation for a higher 
act of faith, as Paul knew whom he had believed, and 
on this ground he was fully persuaded or had a perfect 
faith that he could safely trust the deposit of himself 
in His hands until the day of judgment. Thus, by first 
believing and then knowing, and on this new basis be- 
lieving again, the Christian climbs J acob's ladder from 
earth to heaven. 

"The love that God hath in us." Believers are 
the sphere in which God's love manifests itself 
to all who know them. "God is love." In verse 8 
these wonderful words are associated with the 



I JOHN IV. 115 
17. Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have bold- 



initial knowledge of God in the soul's new birth. 
Here they are repeated in connection with the be- 
liever's activity, growth and Christian perfection 
God in Christ is set as the type for human action and 
the model to which the believer must be conformed, not 
only in the future world, but in the present life, for 
"As he is so are we in this world." 

"Dwelleth in God and God in him." See verse 15, 
note. This mutual abiding enables the adult believer 
to rise to the heavenly order described in Col. iii. 3, "For 
ye died and your life is hid with Christ in God." Death 
to sin is requisite to perfect fellowship with God. 

17. "Herein haslovebeenmadeperfectwithus." Some 
exegetes say that it is God's love to us which is here de- 
scribed, but we agree with Alford that "this is forbidden 
by the whole context." God's love is always perfect, 
but man's love to God shed abroad in the heart by the 
Holy Spirit (Bom. v. 5), meeting various obstacles, lim- 
itations and antagonisms (Gal. v. 17; 1 Cor. iii. 1-3), 
is at first feeble and imperfect. But when the flesh is 
crucified, love filling the soul's whole capacity is said by 
the Spirit of inspiration to be perfected. Again, "the 
love of God" in this Epistle commonly means our love to 
Him, and not His to us (ii. 5, iii. 17, v. 3). If it means 
the love which He has implanted in us, He is the direct 



Il6 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

ness in the day of judgment ; because as he is, even so <are we in 
this world. 



object of that love and we are the responsible subjects. 
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." 
It is best to interpret "herein" as referring to what pre- 
cedes ; to our abiding in God and God in us. "That we 
may have boldness." Bather in order that we may 
have boldness in the day of judgment. The Greek thus 
strongly expresses the purpose for which our love is 
made perfect by the mutual indwelling. 

"Boldness." This strong Saxon word is the best 
translation of the Greek. In the A. Y. it is rendered 
by the weak word "confidence," as in ii. 28. It is a com- 
pound word meaning "say everything," and signifies 
the utmost intrepidity and freedom in speaking. The 
B. Y. uniformly renders it "boldness" everywhere in 
this Epistle and in Ileb. iv. 16, where it means the fear- 
less trust with which perfect love regards "the judge 
of the quick and the dead." This boldness attends 
the present contemplation of the day of judgment by 
those who love God with all the heart, mind and 
strength. 

"Day of judgment." This future day is demon- 
strated by the human conscience, and by divine revela- 
tion. It is authenticated by the resurrection from the 
dead of the appointed Judge (Acts xvii. 31) who declared 



I JOHN IV. 117 

that he would judge the whole human family, and con- 
firmed this solemn prediction by his greatest miracle, his 
victory over the grave. 

"Because as He is, so are we in this world." John's 
statement is what in logic is called an "enthymeme." 
One of the premises not being expressed is carried 
along in the mind. This premise is the thought that 
the Judge will not condemn those who are facsimiles of 
Himself. This is the syllogism: 

The final Judge will acquit facsimiles of Himself. 

We are in this world facsimiles of the final J udge. 

Therefore the final Judge will acquit us. 

Says Bishop Westcott, "The ground of boldness is 
present likeness to Christ." Says Alford, "In these 
words, the sense must be gained by keeping strictly to 
the tenses and grammatical construction, not by chang- 
ing the tenses, nor by referring the words in this world 
to Christ, as Christ was in this world we are." This is 
true, but it is not the truth declared in this verse. 
Our essential likeness to Christ is "not in our trials 
and persecutions; nor by our not being of the world 
as He is not of the world; nor in that we, as sons by 
adoption through Him, are beloved of God, nor in 
that we live in love as He lives in love; but in that 
we are righteous as He is righteous (chap. ii. 29, iii. 
3-6, 10, 22); this love being evinced by our abiding in 
love." Alford furthermore asserts that the ground of 



I I 8 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

18. There is no fear in love: but perfect love casteth out fear, 



our boldness is "because we are absolutely like Christ 
Himself, because He lives in us, for without this there 
can be no likeness to Him." Westeott concurs with 
Alford. He says, "The likeness of Christians to Christ 
is to His character as it is at present and eternally, not 
to any one attribute, as love or righteousness, but to the 
whole character of Christ as it is made known; and His 
high-priestly prayer serves as a commentary on the view 
which St. John suggests of the position of Christians in 
this world." 

18. "There is no fear in love." The thought of bold- 
ness, by a mental law of suggestion, calls up the theme 
of fear in contrast as naturally existing in sinful men. 
Fear and love are mutually exclusive according to the 
intensity of love. "Fear cannot co-exist with perfect 
love which occupies the whole heart. The fear of which 
St. John speaks is, of course, not the reverence of a son 
(Heb. v. 7, 8), but the dread of the criminal or of the 
slave." (Westcott.) Says Augustine, "It is one thing to 
fear God lest He may send thee into Gehenna with the 
devil; and quite a different feeling to fear God lest He 
depart from thee." With a theological insight and an 
epigrammatic expression unparalleled, Bengel groups 
all mankind in four classes: 

1st. Those who are without fear and without love; 



I JOHN IV. 119 

because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth is not made 
perfect in love. 

19. We love, because he first loved us. 



2d. Those who are with fear and without love; 

3d. Those who are with fear and with love; 

4th. Those who are without fear and with love. 

This unmatched epigram also gives the history of the 
individual soul from the blindness and hardness of im- 
penitence through conviction of sin, and the mixed con- 
dition of early Christian experience, "the flesh lusting 
against the Spirit and the Spirit opposing the flesh" in 
His endeavor to lead the persevering believer into the 
experience of love not mingled with fear, pure, or per- 
fect, love, the spiritual Canaan 

" Where dwells the Lord our Righteousness, 
And keeps his own in perfect peace 
And everlasting rest." 

"Fear hath punishment." In anticipation of divinely 
inflicted suffering. Such punishment is not future only 
but present. See John iii. 18. 

19. "We love." In the critical manuscript there is 
no expressed object, because Christian love of every 
kind is meant. 

"Because He first loved us." This is more than grati- 
tude. Evangelical love originates in God's love. This 
enkindles love in us as a fruit of the Spirit. (Kom. v. 
5; Gal. v. 22.) 



120 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



20. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a 
liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, can- 
not love God whom he hath not seen. 



20. "If a man say." Here appears again the Gnostic 
objector with whom we became acquainted in chap. i. 
6, 8, 10. By his baneful doctrine of dualism, ascribing 
all evil to matter, and declaring his spirit by its nature 
free from sin, he vainly imagines that he can combine 
in his own person love toward God and hatred of his 
brother in Christ or his fellow-man made in the image 
of God. Says Dr. Plummer in the Cambridge Bible for 
Schools, "The case here contemplated is one form of the 
man that f eareth not. His freedom from fear is caused, 
however, not by the perfection of love but by presump- 
tion. He is either morally blind or a conscious hypo- 
crite." Compare ii. 4, 9. He neither fears nor loves. 
His fearlessness may result from indifference, or igno- 
rance, or inveterate wickedness veneered with a preten- 
tious philosophy. 

"He cannot love God." John's argument is 
that if a man fails in the duty of love to one 
with whom he is in daily intercourse, he cannot 
perform the far more difficult duty of loving one 
whom he has never seen and of whose form he can- 
not conceive, and whose invisible existence is kept 
in mind by the strenuous effort of faith. 



X JOHN IV. 



121 



21. And this commandment have we from him, that he who 
loveth God love his brother also. 



21. "Commandment . . . from him." Exegetes 
find it difficult to determine in this verse, as also in sev- 
eral other passages, whether John is speaking of the Son 
or of the Father. Both are authors of this command. 
(Lev. xix. 18; John xiii. 34.) But this difficulty is not 
without doctrinal significance. It argues that the 
apostle thoroughly believed in the supreme Godhead of 
the Incarnate Son of God who shared his Father's glory 
before the world was. If John had believed that the 
Son of God was a creature he would not have so con- 
fused the Personal Son with his Father's personality. 

John's reasoning, in a nutshell, is this, no man can do 
so contradictory an act as to love God and hate his image 
in his brother man, and, especially, in his Christian 
brother. 

CONCLUDING NOTES. 

1. In verse 3 an important variant reading is found 
in the Yulgate and in many Latin fathers. Instead 
of "confesseth not Jesus" they have "separates Jesus," 
i. e. y separates the divine from the human, or divides 
the one divine-human person. Some of the Latin manu- 
scripts read "annulleth" for "confesseth not." See K. 
Y. margin. For the following reasons we reject these 
two variant readings: 



122 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

(1.) The name Jesus emphasizes the humanity of our 
Lord and it would not be used by John in a sense so 
comprehensive. He would have said "the Christ." 

(2.) All the earliest Greek manuscripts read "con- 
fesseth not," and all the versions except the Latin, al- 
though one important Old Latin follows the earliest 
Greek manuscripts. Nearly all the Greek fathers who 
quote this text have the words "confesseth not." In 
view of these facts there can be no question as to the 
overwhelming weight of evidence in favor of the tradi- 
tional reading, as found in both the A. Y. and R. V. 

2. Yerse 8. For the most part St. John, like the other 
writers of the Bible, leaves the reader to form his con- 
ception of God from what is recorded of His action ; but 
in three phrases he has laid down once for all the great 
outlines within which our thoughts on the Divine Na- 
ture must be confined, "God is Spirit," "God is light," 
and"God is love." "The first is metaphysical and describes 
God in Himself, in His being. The second is moral, 
and describes God in His character towards all created 
things. He is light. The third is personal, and de- 
scribes God in His action towards self-conscious crea- 
tures. He is love. In this order they offer a progress 
of thought." (Westcott.) 

3. Augustine declares that the name "Love" belongs 
very appropriately in the Holy Trinity to the Holy Spirit 
who communicates to us that common love which binds 



I JOHN IV. 



123 



the Father and the Son together. Hence this epigram- 
matic sentence contains the quintessence of orthodox 
theology: "Ubi caritas, ibi Trinitas," where love is there 
is the Trinity. Love existing from eternity, before a 
creature existed, must have had the only begotten Son 
for its eternal object, while the messenger between them 
was the Personal Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory 
because he fathoms or searches the depths of both the 
Father and the Son. The unity of the Three is one sub- 
stance, Love. Augustine insists that the divine "sub- 
stance is not one thing and love another, but that the 
substance itself is love, and love itself is the substance, 
whether in the Father or in the Son." "Love," says 
Westcott, "involves a subject and an object, and that 
which unites both. We are taught, then, to conceive 
of God as having in Himself the perfect object of 
love and the perfect response of love, completely 
self-sufficing and self-complete. We thus gain, how- 
ever imperfect language may be, the idea of a tri- 
personality in an Infinite Being as correlative to a 
sole-personality in a finite. In the unity of Him who 
is One we acknowledge the Father, the Son and the 
Holy Spirit, in the interaction of Whom we can see 
love fulfilled." To have no personal experience of love 
in its evangelical sense is to have no personal knowledge 
of God. The Gnostics knew much about God, but they 
had no real knowledge of God, because, instead of lov- 



124 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



ing their illiterate brethren, they, in their intellectual 
pride, looked down upon them with an arrogant con- 
tempt. 

4. Until the sunrise of the Incarnation no religion 
had grasped the truth that God in His very essence is 
love. The name which He set for Himself in the Old 
Testament was Jehovah, "I am that I am,' 7 but the 
name revealed in the 'New Testament is Love. In no 
book in the New Testament does "love," either as a 
noun or a verb, occur so often as in this Epistle and 
the gospelwritten by "the Apostle of Love." The love 
of God usually in this Epistle means our love to God, 
but in verse 9 and in iii. 16 it means His love to us. 

5. Only begotten Son, verse 9. 

"The point which is emphasized by 'only begotten 
Son' here is evidently the absolute uniqueness of the 
Being of the Son. He stands to the Father in a re- 
lation wholly singular. He is the one only Son, the one 
to whom the title belongs in a sense completely unique 
and peculiar. The thought is centred in the Personal 
existence of the Son, and not in the generation of the 
Son. The true reading in John i. 18 is in all probabil- 
ity 'only begotten God' (R. V. margin and text of West- 
cott and Hort). This phrase occurs in some of the con- 
fessions of the fourth century." Christ is the only 
begotten Son in distinction from the many who have 
become sons by adoption. We must avoid the error 



I JOHN IV. 



125 



of Dr. Adam Clarke and Prof. Moses Stuart that the 
Logos was not the Son until he was born of Mary. He 
was Son from eternity. See Watson's Institutes on 
"the eternal generation of the Son." 
6. Perfect Love, verse 18. 

We cannot agree with the Cambridge Bible for 
Schools and Colleges: "Though as certain as any physi- 
cal law, the principle, that perfect love excludes all fear, 
is an ideal that has never been verified in fact. ~No be- 
liever's love has ever been so perfect as entirely to ban- 
ish fear; but every believer experiences that as his love 
increases his fear diminishes." Our objection to this 
denial is, first, that it assumes that the writer has known 
the state of feeling of every martyr who has joyfully 
marched to the stake, and of every other Christian in 
all the past generations, which assumption is but little 
short of omniscience; and, secondly, it is a covert denial 
of the possibility of perfect love in the human soul un- 
der the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. The most that 
any man is competent to assert is that he has not himself 
reached that experience of love which banishes all fear 
that has torment. Our third objection is that it im- 
peaches and discredits the testimonies of eminent saints 
in all the Christian ages. In the fourth place idealism, 
when employed to neutralize a divine precept, is a 
weapon which can be wielded against every command- 
ment of God. He who interprets as ideal and imprac- 



126 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

ticable the mandate, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as 
your Father which is in heaven is perfect," opens the 
way for the negation of all the other precepts in the 
Sermon on the Mount, a way in which many modern 
professors of the Christian faith are carelessly walking. 

"To put the standard of Christian perfection too 
high/' says Wesley, "is to drive it out of the world." 
There is no doubt that what "the beloved disciple" says 
about perfect love and deliverance from all fear he says 
out of the experience of his own heart as a fact, St. 
Paul reasoned, but St. John uttered the intuitions of his 
own consciousness. 



CHAPTEK V. 



In this chapter true faith is described as acknowledg- 
ing the Messiahship of Jesus, as experiencing the new 
birth, as aflame with love to G od and to all the regener- 
ate, as keeping God's commands, as victorious over the 
world, as having inward self-attestation and eternal life, 
and as having boldness and success in prayer. The 
apostle in iv. 12 details the various evidences on which 
the Christian faith rests, and declares faith and love to 
be inseparable, that alike worthless is a faith which does 
not inspire love, and a love not the offspring of faith. 
The transition from the former chapter lies in the idea 
of brotherhood, not human, but Christian, arising from 
a love flowing from a vital apprehension of Christ as 
both an almighty Saviour and a supreme Lord. On the 
plane of love inspired by the Holy Spirit, this brother- 
hood is not an arbitrary command, but a natural outflow 
from this diffusive principle. 

1. "Whosoever believeth." This is more than assent 

to the facts in the life of Christ and to the truth of His 

doctrines and His claims; it is such a reliance upon His 

person for salvation as causes the abandonment of every 

127 



128 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of 



other hope and plea, and the enthronement of Him as 
the supreme Lawgiver. True faith embraces assent, 
consent and trust. It requires the hearty assent of the 
intellect and the cordial movement of the sensibilities 
and the perfect submission of the will. 

"Has been begotten- of God." The perfect tense in 
the Greek implies the continuous efficacy of this divine 
change. 

"Every one that loveth Him that begat." The divine 
order is faith in Christ, the giver of the Spirit, the Spirit 
imparting life, and love attending spiritual life as its 
chief element. Thus faith and love are inseparable. 
Says Augustine, "Faith with love is the faith of a Chris- 
tian; without love it is the faith of a demon." The 
same sentiment is expressed by James respecting those 
who profess to have faith without its fruitage in works 
of love. "The devils also believe and tremble," "and 
are devils still." (Wesley.) 

"Loveth . . . begotten of him." This is natural. 
The love of God and the love of the children of God do 
in fact include each the other. It is equally true if we 
reverse the order of the subject and predicate and say 
"he who loves the children of God loves God. Either 
form of love may be made the ground or the conclusion 
in the argument," The children are in the image of 



I JOHN V. 



129 



God j and whosoever loveth him that begat loveth him also that 
is begotten of him. 

2. Hereby we know that we love the children of God, when we 
love God, and do his commandments. 



their father. No one can love his father and hate his 
photographs, unless they are distortions so monstrous 
as to dishonor him. True Christians are more or less 
perfect representations of God's moral character. This 
verse is called in logic an irregular sorites: 
"Every one who believes the Incarnation is a child of 
God. 

Every child of God loves its Father. 
Every believer in the Incarnation loves . God. 
Every one who loves God loves the children of God. 
Every believer in the Incarnation loves the children of 
God." 

This verse demonstrates that the love of the Father 
is the source of love to His children, and not the reverse. 

2. "Do His commandments." This phrase occurs 
nowhere else. Love to God's children is here said to 
follow from our love to God evinced by obedience. 
The two loves confirm and prove each other. If either 
is professed in the absence of the other it is spurious. 
One may know that his love to his brethren is genuine 
when he is sure that he loves God. "Whenever we love 
and obey God we have fresh evidence that our philan- 
thropy is genuine," 



130 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



3. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: 
and his commandments are not grievous. 

4. For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world: 

3. "His comandments are not grievous" — or burden- 
some. Love knows no burdens. Christ's yoke is light 
because he imparts strength to bear it. "I can do all 
things in him that strengthened me." (Phil. iv. 13, 
K. V.) 

4. "Whatsoever." The neuter emphasizes the vic- 
torious power rather than the victorious person. Be- 
ware of that exegesis of this text which analyzes the 
Christian into two personalities, the old man in full 
strength and the new man dwelling together until death 
separates them, the old man never crucified (Gal. ii. 
20, v. 24; Col. ii. 11) and the body of sin never de- 
stroyed. The result is a lifelong sinning personality 
justified by the doctrine that entire sanctification is im- 
possible in the present life, the doctrine which encour- 
ages believers to continue in depravity, and which dis- 
crowns the Gospel of Christ by making death the final 
conqueror of the propensity to sin. 

"Is begotten of God." Here and in verses 1 and 18, 
"in all three cases we have the perfect, not the aorist, 
participle. It is not the mere fact of having received 
the Divine birth that is insisted on, but the permanent 
results of the birth." (Dr. A. Plummer's Cambridge 
Bible for Colleges.) The same writer notes the fact 



I JOHN V. 131 

and this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our 
faith. 



that in the words, "victory that overcometh," the 
aorist should be rendered "overcame," the tense de- 
noting "a victory won once for all." Westcott thinks 
that here "the aorist receives its full force. The vic- 
tory of Christ was gained upon a narrow field, but it 
was world-wide in its effects." But we understand 
from the context that John is describing the victory of 
regenerate souls. To speak of Jesus Christ as exercising 
faith is to use a diction foreign to the New Testament. 
Every Christian may reach a point where faith puts 
forth its highest possibilities and receives, as a definite 
second experience of the fulness of the Holy Spirit in 
his office as the Sanctifier, a victory once for all which 
will make all future victories easy. Westcott else- 
where concedes that the believer may "pass through the 
decisive history in which the truth is once for all abso- 
lutely realized." 

"Overcometh the world." Here is an additional 
reason why the commands are not burdensome; it is 
because the new birth gives a new point of view. 
Christian faith gives a power to grasp spiritual realities 
by imparting a new unworldly nature and a strength 
which overcomes the world. Faith makes the invisible 
world so real and brings the future and eternal life so 



132 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



5. And who is he that overcometh the world, but he that be- 
lieveth that Jesus is the Son of God? 



near as to make them more influential in the formation 
of character than the influences of the present evil 
world. (See Chalmers's great sermon on "The Expul- 
sive Power of a ~New Affection.") 

"The world." All the limited transitory powers op- 
posed to God. It is an empire whose dominion we can- 
not escape till through faith in Christ the spiritual and 
eternal become real and infinitely more valuable than 
things earthly, sensual and evanescent. Faith gives 
us the true standard for the estimate of things. 

"Even our faith." In the Greek the word "faith" 
in John's Epistles occurs here only. It is not found in 
his Gospel. It here signifies the system of Gospel 
truth summed up in the confession that Jesus Christ, 
the Son of God, both Saviour and Lord, is so trusted 
in and enthroned as to constitute that saving faith 
which works by love, purifies the heart and overcomes 
the world. He who possesses this faith and persever- 
ingly exhibits its effects in his transformed character 
will share the victory over the world in which Christ 
exulted. (John xvi. 33.) 

5. "Who is he that overcometh?" Here the ab- 
stract "whatsoever" is concreted in the single believer 
whose victory represents what may actually be realized 



I JOHN V. 



133 



6. This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; 
not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. 



in every Christian. "Belief in Christ is at once belief 
in God and in man. It lays a foundation for love and 
trust toward our fellow-men. Thus the instinctive 
distrust and selfishness, which reign supreme in the 
world, are overcome." 

6. "This is he that came." The identity of the man 
of Nazareth with the eternal Son of God is again em- 
phasized as the central truth of Christian theology, the 
reception of which is necessary to the attainment of 
victory over the world and of translation out of dark- 
ness into the marvellous light of His kingdom. Then 
follow the witnesses to this truth which are "the water 
and the blood." Many are the explanations of these 
words. The ritualists understand them to signify the 
sacraments of baptism and of the Lord's Supper. Others 
see only symbols of purification and redemption. But 
it seems to the writer that John uses these words as a 
summary of Christ's earthly life and mission, baptism 
in the water of Jordan and His sacrificial death by the 
shedding of His blood for the redemption of the world. 
The cardinal truths of His gospel are here briefly 
stated; for at His baptism with water was His baptism 
with the Holy Spirit attended by the Divine announce- 
ment of His Sonship to God in words implying that He 



134 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES.. 



is the Son in a sense unique and peculiar. This was a 
sufficient opening and explanation of the whole of His 
ministry. His public and tragic death is at once the 
close and the explanation of His life of self-sacrifice. 
"The Gnostic teachers, against whom the apostle is 
writing, admitted that the Christ came 'through' and 
'in' water; it was precisely at the baptism, they said, 
that the Divine Word united Himself with the man 
Jesus. But they denied that the Divine Person had 
any share in what was effected 'through' and 'in' blood; 
for, according to them, the Word departed from Jesus 
at Gethsemane. John emphatically assures us that 
there was no such separation. It was the Son of God 
who was baptized; it was the Son of God who was cru- 
cified; and it is faith in this vital truth that produces 
brotherly love, that overcomes the world, and is eter- 
nal life." (The Cambridge Bible for Colleges.) 

"It is the Spirit that beareth witness." Besides the 
Spirit's testimony to the Divinity of Christ and the ab- 
solute truth of His Gospel (John xv. 26) there are six 
other witnesses cited in John's Gospel: The Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures (v. 39-47), the Baptist (i. 7), the Dis- 
ciples (xv. 27, xvi. 30), Christ's works (v. 36, x. 25, 
38), His words (viii. 14, 18, xviii. 37), and the Father 
(v. 37, viii. 18). In this Epistle John adds two more 
witnesses, the water and the blood, thus making eight 
witnesses in all. That John is not a favorite with 



I JOHN V. 



135 



the so-called liberal religious teachers is not won- 
derful. 

"The Spirit is truth." Hence his testimony is abso- 
lutely infallible in glorifying the Christ (John xvi. 14) 
identifying him with Jesus. 

"Just as Christ is the Truth (John xiv. 6), the Spirit 
sent in Christ's name is the Truth." 

The Vulgate reads thus: "The Spirit is he who testi- 
fies that Christ is the Truth." On this unsubstantial 
version Bede comments in a very vigorous style, de- 
nouncing those who deny the reality of our Saviour's 
body: "Since therefore the Spirit testifies that Christ 
is the Truth, and since He surnames Himself the 
Truth, and the Baptist proclaims Him to be the Truth, 
and the Son of thunder in his evangel heralds Him as 
the Truth, let the blasphemers who dogmatically de- 
clare that He is a phantom hold their tongues ; let their 
memory perish from the earth who deny either that He 
is God or that He is a real man." The whole truth re- 
vealed by Christ must be believed, however unpleasant. 
It is morally impossible to be an eclectic believer, re- 
ceiving only the pleasant parts of Christianity. This 
is putting depraved taste above the infallible Teacher, 
to whom the human intellect as well as the human will 
must bow when we exercise saving faith. What is here 
said of Christ is said also of His representative, the 
Holy Spirit. 



136 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

7. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit 
is the truth. 



7. ("Three that bear record in heaven.") These 
words are not in the B. V. In the opinion of all ex- 
perts this passage is not genuine, not being found in a 
single Greek manuscript earlier than the fifteenth cen- 
tury; nor was it quoted by any one of the Greek or 
Latin fathers in the third, fourth and first half of the 
fifth centuries, when the doctrine of the Trinity was 
most intensely discussed. This verse is first found 
near the close of the fifth century in the Latin version, 
and it occurs in no other language until the fifteenth 
century. It is supposed to have been at first a mar- 
ginal comment on a part of the seventh and eighth 
verses. "For there are three that bear record, the 
Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and the three 
agree in one." Into these genuine words this marginal 
comment was probably copied innocently by some 
scribe, who supposed that they belonged to the text. 
This is called a gloss. The doctrine of the Trinity does 
not need any questionable proof-texts, being abun- 
dantly proved by those accepted Scriptures which 
ascribe Divine titles, attributes and works to the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in whose names every 
Christian is baptized and every Christian assembly is 
with benediction dismissed. 



I JOHN V. 



137 



8. For there are three who bear witness, the Spirit, and the 
water, and the blood: and the three agree in one. 

9. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is 
greater: for the witness of God is thi3, that lie hath borne wit- 
ness concerning his Son. 

10. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in 

8. "Agree in one." The Spirit, the water, and the 
blood are for the one object of establishing the Godhead 
of Christ. "The Trinity of witnesses furnish one testi- 
mony." 

9. "If we receive the witness of men." An echo 
of Christ's word in John viii. 17, "the witness of two 
men is true." How credible, therefore, must the two 
witnesses be when they are the Father and the Son. 
The next clause should be reversed and connected with 
the following verse, thus: "The witness of God is this: 
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness 
in himself," after the analogy of chap. i. 5. "To 
believe on," a phrase occurring nearly forty times in 
John's Gospel and elsewhere in the New Testament 
only about ten times, expresses the strongest reliance 
and trust. We may believe a person's word without 
trusting to him our property or our lives. 

10. "Witness in him." Here we prefer "him- 
self" (Westcott and Hort) instead of "him" (K. V.). 
The external witness accepted as valid becomes internal 
certitude when the will bows in accordance with the 
truth believed. Absolute and irreversible self-surren- 



138 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



him: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; 
because he hath not believed in the witness that God hath 
borne concerning his Son. 

der to Him who is the Truth brings a direct conscious- 
ness of His Divine nature and work. The witness of 
the Spirit, and of the water, and of the blood leads suc- 
cessively to an inner conviction and realization of par- 
don, newness of life and entire cleansing. Thus John's 
doctrine of assurance agrees with Paul's in Eom. viii. 
16; Gal. iv. 6. This blessed effect does not follow a 
mere speculative assent to a fact, but it follows trust 
in the person of Christ and sole reliance on Him. This 
statement supplements the conditions of the new birth 
partly stated in the first verse of this chapter. Specu- 
lative or historical faith is not decisive of salvation, but 
it is the first step toward a saving trust. 

"He that believeth not God." The fact that this 
clause is a direct antithesis to "believing on the Son," 
implies the Godhead or supreme Divinity of Jesus 
Christ. It also implies that a man cannot be a true 
believer in God while refusing to rely on His Son for 
salvation. 

"Hath made Him a liar." This declaration John ap- 
plies to two classes, to those who say that they have 
no sins (i. 10) which need a Divine Saviour; and, sec- 
ondly, to those who deny that such a Saviour is the 
Son of God, our Lord Jesus. The Gnostics belong to 



I JOHN V. 



139 



11. And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, 
and this life is in his Son. 

12. He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the 
Son of God hath not the life. 

both of these classes whose teachings impeach God's 
testimony that "all have sinned," and that there is sal- 
vation in no other name than that of Jesus Christ. The 
two errors are twins. To lie is a dreadful sin, but to be 
a liar is much worse. The one is a bad act, the other 
is an evil character. Hence the heinousness of failing 
to believe God, to say nothing about an avowed distrust 
and disobedience. 

"Hath not believed." The perfect tense indicates a 
permanent state in the past continuing to the present 
hour. 

11. "That he gave." As a historic fact in the mission 
of His Son "He gave to us" who evangelically appro- 
priate Christ, "eternal life." He who experimentally 
knows the truth of the Gospel has life eternal, which is 
present as well as future, or rather "eternal life" ex- 
ists, and so is above all time. It is eminently a New 
Testament phrase occurring forty-four times. It is 
found only once in the Old Testament, Dan. xii. 2. It 
was manifested unto us (apostles). See i. 2. 

"This life is in His Son." Its source and seat, its 
Prince or Author. See i. 4; Acts iii. 15. 

12. "Hath the Son hath the life." If the Son 
is the fountain of life, then whoever has the Son 



140 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



has the life, and no man can have the latter 
without the former. What is it to have the Son? 
It must not be weakened to mean to hold as an article 
of faith that Jesus of ISTazareth is the Son of God. To 
have Him we must appropriate Him by receiving Him 
as both Saviour and Lord in a manner so definite as to 
become the children of God (John i. 12), so consciously 
as to have the testimony of the Holy Spirit crying in 
the heart Abba, Father. (Eom. viii. 14-17; Gal. iv. 6.) 
If any one is in doubt in respect to this momentous 
question on which eternal destiny hinges, let him by 
penitent, all-surrendering faith in Christ ask for the 
witness of the Spirit of adoption. This life Paul calls 
"the life indeed" (1 Tim. vi. 19, E. V.), and Ignatius 
styles it "the inseparable life" and "our true life." 

"He that hath not the Son of God." The words "of 
God" added to the last antithetic clause emphasize the 
greatness of the treasure which persistent unbelief 
through probation has forever removed, even the un- 
searchable riches of Christ. They also accentuate the 
certainty of failure in such a case, for to His Son God 
has given to have life in Himself and to impart life to 
evangelical believers, and to such only. 

v. 13-21. Conclusion. 

1. Intercessory Love the Fruit of Faith (v. 13-17). 

2. The Sum of the Christian's Knowledge (v. 18-20). 

3. Final Injunction (v. 21). 



I JOHN V. 



13. These things have I written unto you, that ye may know 
that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name 
of the Son of God. 

14. And this is the boldness which we have toward him, that, 
if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: 



13. "That ye may know." The Gospel of John was 
written "that ye may have life" (xx. 31), but this Epis- 
tle was written "that ye may know that ye have eternal 
life." The one leads to the obtaining of the boon of 
life. The other to the joy of knowing that it is not 
only obtained, but that it is eternal. Thus from the 
Gospel to the Epistle there is progress. True faith 
always leads to knowledge. (Eph. iv. 13.) 

14. "This is the boldness." Better, "And the bold- 
ness that we have towards Him is this, that if," etc. 
Thrice before this has John spoken of the Christian 
boldness (ii. 28, iii. 21, 22, iv. 17). Here it is in refer- 
ence to intercessory prayer, prompted by love of the 
brethren. The conscious possession of eternal life en- 
ables the believer to come directly before God and to 
speak every thought with perfect freedom. This bold- 
ness is more than simple belief, it is a sure inward ex- 
perience. 

"According to his will." This only limit to ac- 
ceptable prayer is equivalent to "in my name," John 
xiv. 13. It comprises all spiritual perfection and all 
temporal things that are contributory to this perfection. 



142 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

15. and if we know that he heareth us whatsoever we ask, we 
know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him. 

16. If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he 
shall ask, and Cod will give him life for them that sin not unto 



15. "And if we know." There may be uncertainty 
respecting the fact of the presence of the knowledge, 
but not in the knowledge itself. He who is prompted 
by the Holy Spirit will ask for those things only which 
accord with God's will, and he will have them in the 
assured promise, if not in conscious realization. (Mark 
xi. 24.) This may be delayed. 

"We have the petitions." Their equivalent, if not 
necessarily the actual things asked for. A saint in 
need may pray for gold and receive that which is bet- 
ter than gold, the trial of his faith; confidence in God 
may be tested and strengthened. This finds its most 
characteristic expression in intercessory prayer, as in 
the next verse. Fellowship with God implies deep in- 
terest in our fellow-men, especially professed disciples 
of Christ. But there is one great barrier to the suc- 
cess of such prayer, "sin unto death." 

16. "Sin not unto death." Death spiritual is sepa- 
ration from Christ "the life." All sin tends to this 
separation, but not in equal degrees. A hasty or 
thoughtless sin flowing from human imperfection and 
infirmity does not carry the same momentum of voli- 
tion as a deliberate transgression. A course of sin is 



I JOHN V. 



143 



death. There is a sin unto death : not concerning this do I say that 
he should make request. 



more worthy of condemnation than a single act, imme- 
diately confessed and repented. 

"He will ask." The true believer will naturally offer 
prayer for his erring and imperilled brother in Christ. 
He needs no command. "Prayer is the Christian's 
vital breath." 

"And he will give to him life." The pronoun "he" 
naturally refers to him who prays. "There is nothing 
unscriptural in the thought that the believer does that 
which God does through him, as in James v. 20." The 
life given is not life restored, but rather life invigorated 
as the life of a sick man on the way to death is strength- 
ened by a skilful physician. 

"There is sin unto death." This is the R. Y. mar- 
ginal reading. The A. V., "a sin," is too definite and 
indicates a single act, or a certain act, which the Greek 
does not imply. 

"I do not say he shall pray for it." We are not for- 
bidden to pray, but excused. In Jer. vii. 16, and xiv. 
11, the prophet was forbidden to pray for the Jewish 
people in their apostasy, because they had exhausted 
the forbearance of God and He had determined to "con- 
sume them." But in the New Testament we are not 
commanded to refrain from prayer for the very worst 



144 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



people, even those who have committed the irremis- 
sible sin, the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. We 
are told that we may innocently refrain from prayer 
in such a case. 

This sin is not limited to a single act, such as a crime 
worthy of punishment by death, or a manifestly Divine 
visitation, or a sin punished by the church with excom- 
munication. It is rather a course of wilful sin in 
defiance of the known law of God persisted in so obsti- 
nately against the influences of the Holy Spirit, that 
repentance becomes a moral impossibility, just as a man 
may starve himself so long as to lose the power to ap- 
propriate, digest and assimilate food. Just as there is 
an abstinence from food, unto death, there is a career 
of sin and a refusal of the offers of grace until the 
power to receive grace perishes. Here arises the ques- 
tion, "How can we know when a sinner has reached this 
fatal point? How can we know when we are excused 
from intercessory prayer in his behalf?" So far as 
our powers of perception are concerned the line be- 
tween God's mercy and His wrath in this world is im- 
perceptible. But since all true prayer is prompted and 
helped by the Holy Spirit (Eom. viii. 26), the total ab- 
sence of such prompting and assistance in the case of 
attempted prayer for an individual, whether a brother 
in the church or not, affords to the living Christian, 
who has the spirit of prayer for other sinners, ground 



I JOHN V. 145 
17. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death. 



for the inference that this person has sinned unto death, 
having passed the point in his course of sin which 
marks the soul for eternal despair. Our exegesis 
is strongly confirmed by the preceding context, which 
teaches that when Ave fulfil the conditions of true 
prayer we receive "whatsoever we ask." John pauses to 
note one exception to this promise, namely, when 
praying for another our prayer will be useless if that 
person has reached the point in his persistent sinning 
beyond which there is no possible passing out of death 
into life. Hence I believe that if the "sin unto death" 
is an act of sin, however heinous, it is the culmination 
of a state or habit of sin wilfully chosen and persisted 
in. It is the deliberate and final preference of dark- 
ness to light, of falsehood to truth, of sin to holiness, 
of the world to God, and of spiritual death to eternal 
life. It is the choice of Milton's Satan, "Evil, be thou 
my good." 

17. "All unrighteousness is sin." "This state- 
ment," says the Cambridge Bible, "serves as a fare- 
well declaration against the Gnostic doctrine that to 
the enlightened Christian declensions from righteous- 
ness involve no sin," because, as they assert, sin inheres 
in matter only, and hence the human spirit is always 
sinless. John's wider scope given to the definition of 



146 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



sin includes not only positive transgression of the law, 
but also all failures to fulfil our duty to God and to 
one another. These are unrighteousness, although 
our natural infirmities and birth propensities do not in- 
volve us in guilt and entail punishment. John had al- 
ready declared (i. 9) that there is ample provision in 
the atonement for both the forgiveness of actual sins 
and for cleansing from all unrighteousness. Here is 
a wide field for brotherly intercession. 

"There is a sin not unto death." This is added as a 
safeguard against despair. Bishop Westcott finds an 
unsolved paradox in this clause and the declaration in 
chap. iii. 9, "Whosoever is born of God doth not com- 
mit sin; and he cannot sin because he is born of 
God." But in this verse John asserts that there is a 
sin which does not destroy the spiritual life. This has 
been accounted a plain contradiction. The perplexity 
disappears, or, rather, is greatly alleviated, by a careful 
reading of the Greek tenses. The perfect tense "has 
been born of God" implies that the regenerating effi- 
cacy of divine grace continues, and his likeness to God, 
figuratively expressed by the phrase "son of God," re- 
mains undimmed to the present moment. In that case, 
while love to God rules the conduct, the person can- 
not be sinning or in a career of rebellion against God, 
which is spiritual death ending in eternal death. But 
from chap. ii. 1 it is assumed that there may be a sin- 



I JOHN V. 147 
18. We know that whatsoever is begotten of God sinneth not ; but 



gle sin (aorist tense), contrary to the tenor and trend 
of this regenerate and saintly character, committed 
under the stress of sudden temptation, and immediately 
bewailed with true penitence and trust in the great Ad- 
vocate with the Father. Such a sin finds speedy for- 
giveness. The spiritual life is not extinguished in eter- 
nal death. In this sense there is possible "a sin not 
unto death." But if instant repentance is not made, 
and a second and a third sin are committed, the law of 
habit comes in, and, like the fabled boa constrictor 
which crushed Laocoon and his sons in his deadly coils, 
destroys forever the spiritual, life. He has ceased to 
be a child of God, because he has ceased to be like God. 
The "sin unto death" has been committed. 

18. "But he that was begotten of God." Rather "the 
begotten of God," otherwise called "the Only Begotten 
Son." The exegetes quite generally agree that the 
Son of God is expressed by the aorist participle "begot- 
ten." If John had in mind a regenerated man he 
would have used the perfect tense, as in the first clause 
of this verse, also in iii. 9. The A. V., in accordance 
with an uncritical manuscript, leaves every newborn 
Christian to "keep himself," but the best critical manu- 
scripts, as in Westcott and Hort's text, supply him with 
a keeper and protector — not a guardian angel, but the 



148 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

he that was begotten of God keepeth him, and the evil one toucheth 
him not. 



only begotten Son of God. Hence he does not depend 
on his own resources in his warfare against the active 
and wily "evil one." 

"Keepeth him." The (only) begotten (Son) of God 
keepeth him, not within a prison, but from watchful 
regard from without; not in custody, but in freedom. 

"Toucheth him not." To a soul perfectly trusting 
in the power of the Son of God, there is no inward point 
of contact for the evil one to touch. "The ground of 
safety," says "YVestcott, "is revealed in John xiv. 30, 
for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing 
in me." The perfectly trusting soul becomes the en- 
tirely sanctified soul. The principle of evil is not 
within, but without. The doctrine of final persever- 
ance cannot be grounded on this passage. Faith may 
lapse and the person may wander from his divine 
keeper. "We cannot be protected against ourselves in 
spite of ourselves," while we are free agents in proba- 
tion. If a man falls at any stage in his spiritual life, it 
is not the fault of divine grace, nor does it come from 
the irresistible power of adversaries, but from relaxed 
hold on the omnipotent guardian to whom he might 
have clung. "The sense of the divine protection is at 
any moment sufficient to inspire confidence, but not to 



I JOHN V. 



149 



19. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in 
the evil one. 



render effort unnecessary." Says Bengel in his note on 
John iv. 14, "Shall never thirst." "Truly that water, 
as far as it depends on itself, has in it an everlasting 
virtue; and when thirst returns the defect is on the 
part of the man, not of the water." Says Alford, on 
John v. 24, "hath eternal life." "Where faith is, the 
possession of eternal life is, and when the one remits, 
the other is forfeited." All of God's promises have a 
condition expressed or implied. Whoever is in Christ 
is safe so long as he abides in Him, for he "is kept by 
the power of God through faith unto salvation." (1 
Pet. i. 5.) 

19. "We know that we are of God." This is the 
most satisfactory knowledge, because it is experimental, 
intuitive and absolutely certain. The Spirit cries 
within the heart, "Abba, Father." The first "we 
know" in verse 18 is theoretical announcing a theo- 
logical truth respecting the regenerate. It is not a 
testimony, but a tenet. The first clause of verse 19 is 
a testimony. 

"The whole world." All men who are not in Christ. 
Human society, as alien from God and opposed to Him, 
is wholly, in all its organizations, principles and prac- 
tices, in the embrace of the evil one. Christians know 



150 HALF— HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



20. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given ua 
an understanding, that we know him that is true, and we are in 



that there is a kingdom of darkness, out of which they 
have been translated, and in which all unregenerate 
still abide. "It is clear, therefore, that the severance 
between the chnrch and the world ought to be, and 
tends to be, as total as that between God and the evil 
one." 

"Lieth in the evil one." A malignant personality 
has usurped the dominion of the whole world as just 
denned. (John xiv. 30, xvi. 11.) Hence a personal 
deliverer is required, in order to emancipate the cap- 
tives of a personal oppressor and destroyer. 

20. "And we know." "Even in the intellectual 
sphere, in which the Gnostics (knowing ones) claim to 
have such advantages, the Christian is, by Christ's 
bounty, superior." (Cambridge Bible.) In the Greek 
this reiterated "we know" is in this case introduced by 
the adversative particle "but," making a startling an- 
tithesis with the preceding clause. Bad as the world 
is under the tyranny of Satan, there is no ground for 
pessimistic despair. "That which is as yet dark will be 
made light. There is given to us the power of ever- 
advancing knowledge and of present divine fellowship. 
We can wait, even as God waits." 

"The Son of God hath come," implying His perma- 



I JOHN V. 



him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true 
God, and eternal life. 



nent presence, inspiring life, hope and strength in 
every believer. 

"And hath given to us an understanding." The per- 
manency of this gift is elsewhere expressed in the gift 
of the Paraclete who came to stay, whose office it is to 
reveal Christ to the eye of faith and to give insight into 
spiritual truth. 

"That we may know," be knowing, by a never-ending 
exercise of our ever-expanding powers, more and more 
of the depths of the Divine love. This is eternal life. 

"Him that is true." The Father revealed in His 
Son completely the loftiest and purest idea of God pos- 
sible in the mind of man, in contrast with the imagi- 
nary, unreal and imperfect objects of worship which 
mislead and debase all the pagan nations. 

"We are in Him that is true." Not by a literal in- 
corporation into the body of the glorified Christ, but by 
fellowship real and blissful. "So far as believers are 
united with Christ, they are united with God. His as- 
sumption of humanity explains how the union is pos- 
sible." (Westcott.) 

"This is the true God and eternal life." All the schol- 
ars agree that "this" may grammatically refer to the 
Father, the principal noun in the previous sentence, or 



152 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

21. My little children, guard yourselves from idols. 



to J esus Christ, the nearest noun. In favor of the first 
theory are the following arguments: (1.) The Father 
is the leading subject of discourse. (2.) It is exactly 
John's style to repeat with some addition what has 
been already written. (3.) The Father is the primary 
source of life, the Son is secondary. (John v. 26.) (4.) 
This view harmonizes with John xvii. 3. (5.) The 
fact that God is the true God is in reference to the ar- 
gument against idolatry, a more special point than the 
Divinity of His Son, as in 1 Thess. i. 9, "And how ye 
turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true 
God." The following are reasons for referring "this" 
to the incarnate Son of God: (1.) His is the noun last 
mentioned. (2.) The Father having been twice called 
"the true one" in the previous verse, to call Him so the 
third time would be a painful tautology. (3.) In this 
Epistle and in John's Gospel, Christ is styled the life. 
(4.) Athenasius thus interprets this text in his contro- 
versy with the Arians. (5.) The main purpose of 
this Epistle is to establish the reality of Christ's hu- 
manity, that the Son of God who has come in the flesh 
is a Being worthy of worship, and because He is the 
revelation of the true God, He is the true God. 

21. "Little children." This is a term of endear- 
ment addressed to all readers, irrespective of age. 



I JOHN Ve 



153 



"Guard yourself from idols." Contrast is one of the 
laws of the suggestion of thought. In this Epistle we 
have had light and darkness, truth and falsehood, love 
and hate, Christ and antichrist, life and death, right- 
eousness and sin, the children of God and the children 
of the devil, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error, 
the believer protected against sin by the Only Begotten 
Son, and the world in the coils of the old serpent, the 
devil; and now we come to a fitting, practical, climac- 
teric conclusion, ""Worship the true God and eschew 
idols." We must bear in mind the environment of 
idolatry in which Christians in John's day lived, when 
every street and every house literally swarmed with 
idols, and magnificent temples and groves and seductive 
idolatrous rites constituted the chief attraction of Ephe- 
sus, the city of great Diana. Some of the Gnostic 
teachers were giving occasion for this warning against 
idols, by their sophistry that idolatry was harmless, or 
that there was no need to suffer martyrdom in order to 
avoid it. If it were sinful, it had no power to defile the 
spirit with the body, but the material envelope only. 
Says Bishop Westcott, "This comprehensive warning is 
probably the latest voice of Scripture." 

The eminent appropriateness of this prohibition of 
idolatry, rendered emphatic by the fact that it is the 
final charge of the beloved apostle, is seen when we 
consider the pagan environment of the Christian 



154 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



church in Ephesus. "If there was one thing for which 
the metropolis of Asia was more celebrated than an- 
other in the apostolic age, it was for the magnificence 
of its idolatrous worship. The temple of Artemis 
(Diana), its tutelary deity, which crowned the head of 
its harbor, was one of the seven wonders of the world. 
Its one hundred and twenty-seven columns, sixty feet 
high, were each a gift of a people or a prince. In area 
it was nearly as large as St. Paul's Cathedral in Lon- 
don; and its magnificence had become a proverb. 'The 
gods had one house on earth, and that was at Ephesus.' 
The architectural imagery of St. Paul in 1 Cor. iii. 9-17, 
which w T as written at Ephesus, and in the Epistles to the 
Ephesians (ii. 19-22), and to Timothy (1 Tim. iii. 15, 
vi. 19; 2 Tim. ii. 19, 20), may well have been suggested 
by it. The city was proud of the title, 'Temple-keeper 
of the great Artemis' (Acts xix. 35), and the wealthy 
vied with one another in lavishing gifts upon the 
shrine. The temple thus became a vast treasure house 
of gold and silver vessels and works of art. It was 
served by a college of priestesses and of priests. 'Be- 
sides these there was a vast throng of dependants, who 
lived by the temple and its services — theologi, who may 
have expounded sacred legends; hymnodi, who com- 
posed hymns in honor of the deity and others, together 
with a great crowd of hierodulce, who performed more 
menial offices. The making of shrines and images of 



I JOHN V. 



the goddess occupied many hands. But perhaps the 
most important of all the privileges possessed by the 
goddess and her priests was that of asylum. Fugitives 
from justice or vengeance who reached her precincts 
were perfecty safe from all pursuit and arrest. The 
boundaries of the space possessing such virtue were 
from time to time enlarged. Mark Antony impru- 
dently allowed them to take in part of the city, which 
part thus became free of all law, and a haunt of thieves 
and villains. Besides being a place of worship, a 
museum and a sanctuary, the Ephesian temple was a 
great bank. Nowhere in Asia could money be more 
safely deposited than here." (Cambridge Bible for 
Schools and Colleges.) Well did Tacitus remark, "~No 
authority was strong enough to keep in check the tur- 
bulence of a people which protected the crimes of men 
in honor and worship of the gods." We have only to 
read the first chapter of Bomans, or Gal. v. 19-21, 
and Col. iii. 5-8, to know enough of the kind of 
morality which commonly accompanied Greek and 
Eoman idolatry in the first century of the Christian 
era, especially in Ephesus, where architecture and art 
and poetry appealed to the sense of the beautiful, where 
the mechanical arts devoted to paganism promoted 
thrift, where the vaults of Diana's temple afforded 
avarice a safe-deposit, where a host of priestesses min- 
istered to lust, and the right of asylum shielded crime. 



I56 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

Where pagan religion is thus linked with art and bus- 
iness and pleasure, we do not wonder that John, the 
venerated Christian teacher, utters his final exhorta- 
tion, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." 
iSTor are we surprised to learn that Heraclitus of Ephe- 
sus was called "the weeping philosopher," in view of 
the monstrous idiocy and protected criminality of the 
people among whom "there was not a man who did not 
deserve hanging." But the bottom of the depravity of 
this idol-worshipping city is not reached till we have 
passed down through the successive strata of magic, as- 
trology, sorcery, incantations, amulets, exorcism, and 
every form of rascally imposture, all engendered by its 
heathen mythology. 

"Facts such as these," says Dr. A. Plummer, "place 
in a very vivid light St. John's stern insistence upon the 
necessity of holding steadfastly the true faith in the 
Father and the incarnate Son, of keeping one's self 
pure, of avoiding the world and the things of the world, 
of being on one's guard against lying spirits, and espe- 
cially the sharp final admonition, 'Guard yourselves 
from idols.' " 

CONCLUDING NOTE. 

The last seven scriptural attestations to the atone- 
ment are found in this Epistle. It is the opinion of the 
most scholarly experts that the so-called First Epistle of 



I JOHN V. 



157 



John is the final document of Divine Kevelation. This 
fact enhances the value of the seven clear and emphatic 
testimonies to the atonement, the central doctrine of 
the Gospel and the keystone of the arch of Christian 
theology. Three of these are found in the third 
chapter and one in each of the other four, making seven 
in all. It has been beautifully said that this Epistle is 
a prism which gives all the seven colors that make up 
the one white light of redemptive truth. Each of these 
testimonies is really distinct from every other, and 
from all others in the Holy Scriptures. These unique 
presentations of this fundamental doctrine have a po- 
lemic value, since they are of the nature of apologetic 
protests against erroneous views of the atonement 
already commencing to disturb the church and certain 
to appear more distinctly in future centuries. Let us 
present a conspectus of these testimonies. The first is 
"the blood of J esus His Son cleanseth us from all sin." 
This is the negative side of the Christian's high privi- 
lege, of which the positive is to have fellowship in the 
light of God. The sin which is cleansed away by the 
virtue of the Redeemer's blood is not viewed as trans- 
gression to be forgiven, but as defilement to be re- 
moved, because it disqualifies for the presence of God 
in his temple. Here we have a definition of the atone- 
ment, as that quality in the blood of Jesus the Son of 
God which annuls or cleanses conditionally the pollu- 



158 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



tion of sin. Its uniqueness lies in the divine-human 
value of the sacrifice for sin nowhere else stated, al- 
though it is implied in Paul's word, "the church of 
God, which he purchased with his own blood." 
(Acts xx. 28.) Hitherto the value of Christ's blood 
has been expressed in such words as "incorrupt- 
ible" and "precious/' but now John's final testimony 
reaches an absolute climax. It is "the blood of 
Jesus His Son." This suggests how widely modern 
philosophers depart from the truth when they deny the 
theological and practical reality of the blood of our 
Incarnate Sacrifice, arguing that the sacrificial lan- 
guage of the Levitical altar-service comes into the New 
Testament only as a figure. Were this true we should 
find in the progress of doctrine in this volume a gradual 
transition from the figurative to the real. On the con- 
trary, Levitical language is more distinct and real at the 
end of the gospels than at the beginning, at the con- 
clusion of the Acts than at the commencement, and in 
the final epistle of Paul than in the first of the series. 
John, the last survivor of the apostles, opens and fin- 
ishes his last writing with a most realistic allusion to 
the blood of the atonement. He gives no sanction 
to an interpretation of the Gospel so refined and so 
"spiritual" as to need no veritable oblation of blood, the 
medium of physical life. In his day the evangelical 
system had not been so sublimated as to clear itself of 



I JOHN V. 



159 



the wrath of God and its propitiation in "the blood of 
Jesus His Son." The modern theory is as false as it is 
fascinating. The second testimony to the atonement 
is still more emphatic: "If any man sin, we have an ad- 
vocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 
And he is the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours 
only, but also for the whole world." The uniqueness 
of this declaration is seen first in the word "hilasmos," 
"propitiation," used in no other book in the New Testa- 
ment, and, secondly, in the fact that the Son of God 
himself is the propitiation, and not as in Rom. iii. 25, 
a propitiatory offering made by Christ. That which 
gives heavenly virtue to the sacrifice in this testimony 
goes beyond the preaching, which emphasizes the blood 
and the life, and announces the astonishing fact that the 
very self of the offerer is the propitiation, as the Son. 
His Person interposes between the divine displeasure 
and the world which "lieth in the wicked one." He is 
the standing propitiation. Hence the possibility of a 
Christian's receiving forgiveness if he should commit a 
single sin, as the aorist tense, "If any man sin," implies. 
The Advocate makes no special intercession for the 
professed Christian who, by persisting in a course of sin 
without repentance, ceases to be a child of God because 
he has lost his likeness to God. In the Septuagint there 
is this remarkable sentence, "There is propitiation 
(hilasmos) with Thee." This is not for the encouragement 



l60 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



of the saint who has yielded to one temptation to sin, 
but for his warning to turn immediately in penitent 
faith in Christ. The Spirit of Inspiration adds these 
words, "that Thou mayest be feared." 

The third testimony is in some respects the most 
striking of all the seven, though it is introduced quite 
incidentally and with the least formality. In stating 
the necessity that all who would see the Son of God as 
He is, when He shall be manifested, should be found 
like Him, "pure even as He is pure," it was very natu- 
ral that His first manifestation should be suggested to 
the mind of John as making provision for all that the 
second manifestation would require. This require- 
ment is purity of heart, for which the atonement is an 
ample conditional provision. In addition we have in 
this Scripture two distinct and peculiar points, the "tak- 
ing away of sins," and "in Him is no sin." The words 
"take away" have a very special force in the Xew Testa- 
ment statement of the atonement. In the sentence, 
"Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of 
the world," the meaning is that Jesus is the conditional 
substitute, not in punishment, but for punishment. 
But in 1 John iii. 5 the dominant thought is not that 
of the sacrificial purgation of sin, but of our complete 
separation from sin through Christ's hostility to sin 
and His removal of all sin from believers even as He 
is Himself sinless. This He does by the indwelling 



I JOHN V. 



fulness of the Spirit entirely sanctifying spirit, soul 
and body. (1 Thess. v. 23.) Hence the atonement ex- 
hibits its highest efficiency in the entire removal of the 
hereditary bent to sinning. 

The seal of perfection is put upon the atonement 
when its Author is thus described: 'Tn Him is no sin." 
He who takes away our sins by forgiveness and our sin- 
fulness by His mission of the Holy Spirit for our entire 
purification, makes Himself the standard of our perfec- 
tion and makes us partakers of His own sinlessness. 
John displays our Pattern negatively as pure, and posi- 
tively as righteous, not merely to magnify Christ's 
dignity, but to reveal our privilege and duty to be ex- 
actly like Him in purity and righteousness. 

Our fourth allusion to the atonement is found in 
John's sudden transition from sin to Satan's agency in 
its origin: "The Son of God was manifested that He 
might destroy the works of the devil." The past tense, 
"was manifested," renders it certain that John is not 
speaking of the destruction of sin at and after his 
second coming, as some erroneously teach. Here in our 
earthly sphere, and now in our probation, while con- 
tending against these three battalions of enemies to 
holiness, the world, the flesh and the devil, the usurping 
prince of this world, is the scene of the most glorious 
victory of the Son of God over His antagonist taking 
place on the very ground of Satan's first apparent tri- 



1 62 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



iimph in the fall of Adam, the progenitor of a race 
bearing his image marred and scarred by sin through 
his evil agency. The works of the devil in this world 
are found only in the human heart. His works do not 
consist in our actual sins. These are the works of men. 
His work is that bent to sinning which the sin of Adam, 
at the solicitation of Satan, the father of lies, entailed 
upon our race. It is the overthrow of this power of 
Satan enthroned in human souls. The Son of God 
came for this purpose that He might, not by physical 
omnipotence, but by the power of His cross, expel the 
forces of Satan and regain for Himself and His Father 
His rightful possession. There is nowhere outside of 
the Apocalypse so full and explicit a statement of the 
relation of the death of Christ to the dissolution of the 
empire of the evil one. If the sins are actual and per- 
sonal they are taken away into the land of f orgetfulness 
through faith in Christ's redemption. If they are the 
works of Satan, then are they to be cast out by the en- 
trance of a stronger than he. John does not go into 
the detail. He leaves the matter in its broad gen- 
erality. He does not use the Pauline phrase, "sanctify 
wholly," and "our old man is crucified," but he cer- 
tainly purposes to accentuate the inspiriting truth that 
those who are born of God may be delivered from 
every trace of the work of Satan within them as a 
downward propelling force. With this idea in his 



I JOHN V. 



mind let any candid person read the whole passage: 
"He was manifested to take away onr sins ; and in Him 
is no sin." What is this bnt a positive assurance that 
those who fully rely on the atonement may, and must, 
share their Saviour's freedom from sin? What 
is this but a declaration that all which is "of 
the devil" may in this life be removed from 
our regenerate souls, which have now become the 
temple of the indwelling Christ? 

The fifth testimony to the atonement regards it as 
the example and pattern of self-sacrificing devotion to 
the good of others : "Hereby know we love, because he 
laid down his life for us ; and we ought to lay down our 
lives for the brethren." 

In the presence of a passage like this we must admit 
that the atonement was a perfect surrender and oblation 
of the human and divine self to His Father; a perfect 
example of the opposite of the sin and selfishness of 
mankind and a sublime reproof of man's separation 
from God. But the idea of example does not explain 
the atonement. There is some purpose infinitely 
deeper than example. On the Godward side there 
must have been some barrier to the salvation of a sin- 
ful race which the atonement removed. "Whether the 
difficulty was in God's essential justice, as some assert, 
or in His governmental rectitude, as we believe, we 
cannot here demonstrate. There is a very wide in- 



1 64 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



terval between the kenosis, or self-emptying of the Son 
of God, and the self-devotion of his imitating servants. 
But this is true that the love which devised the atone- 
ment in the wisdom of the Father, and prompted the 
self-sacrificing of the Son, is that perfect love in purified 
human hearts which inspires self-abnegation even unto 
death in the spiritual interest of our fellow-men. 

As we advance in this wonderful Epistle we come to 
the sixth testimony to the atonement, which is the 
largest and most comprehensive of the seven. "God 
is love. Herein was the love of God manifested in us, 
that God hath sent His only begotten Son into the 
world that we might live through Him." That here, 
for the first time in the Bible, God is said to be love, 
must awaken our keen attention. Love has the pre- 
eminence here as everywhere, and rules the whole pas- 
sage. It is the fountain out of which the atonement 
flows. It presides over the mission of the Bedeemer, 
providing for believers a divine life which itself pre- 
supposes and requires a propitiation. It is the melody 
of all God's Revelation, and it strikes its highest note 
in the gift of His only begotten Son to the manger and 
the cross, that the believer might not perish, but have 
eternal life. In no other sense is love the essence of 
God's nature than in the intercommunication of the 
Persons of the Trinity. Upon the fact that the Son 
was the object of the Father's love from eternity is 



I JOHN V. 



I6 5 



grounded the manifestation of His love to us in the 
gift of His Son, that believers "might live through 
Him." John does not use any of Paul's terms, "recon- 
ciliation," "ransom" and "redemption," but their full 
meaning is contained in the twice used word "hilasmos," 
"propitiation" required by holiness and provided by 
love. This great word in chap. iv. 10, stands between 
the positive purpose of the atonement in verse 9, 
"that we might live through him," and the negative 
in verse 14, "to be the Saviour of the world." The lat- 
ter teaches the universal extent of the atonement as an 
objective provision, and the former the free, subjective 
appropriation which limits its ultimate benefits to those 
who comply with its conditions. 

The seventh and last of John's testimonies and the 
last in all Revelation relates to the virtue of the atone- 
ment as the source of life, eternal life, conditionally in- 
spired in a fallen race. This is the supreme benefit of 
God in the death and resurrection of His Incarnate Son. 
If there is one sentence worthy of being God's final 
word respecting this whole subject, it is this: "And 
this is the record (testimony) that God hath given to 
us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that 
hath the Son hath the life ; he that hath not the Son of 
God hath not the life;" or, in the emphatic order of the 
Greek, "the life he hath not." Searching the "record" 
just written we find the Spirit, the author and giver of 



1 66 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES, 



life; the water, the indispensable supporter of life, "the 
well of water" within the believer "springing np into 
everlasting life," and the blood flowing from His 
pierced side. We may not explain the great miracle of 
living streams/'water and blood," out of a dead Saviour's 
side. In the sacrifice of onr redemption they flow 
together, the water signifying the new life imparted in 
the new birth. This with John is the supreme if not 
the only meaning of water as a symbol, as all purifying 
by washing is with blood. "He has washed us from our 
sins in His blood." The two streams signify the unity 
of spiritual life in the purgation of sin and the removal 
of death by the impartation of life, the beginning of 
life everlasting. He who receives the one receives the 
other. The blood avails for the whole world as a pro- 
vision placing all men on salvable ground. But it is 
not so with the water. It must be drunken before life 
can be experienced. For eternal life is in His Son. 
"He," and he only, who hath the Son hath life. To 
have the Son in this vital sense is to be united with Him 
as the branch is united with the vine. 

There is no book of the New Testament which makes 
the propitiation of Christ so absolutely all-prevailing; 
it is the beginning and ending and the interval between 
them. It is something unspeakably solemn in the 
appeal of the last page of the Bible to the significance 
of the atonement, as if the Holy Spirit who inspired it 



I JOHN V. 167 



would end His work at the cross and leave ringing in 
the ears of every reader the words, "we have life in the 
Son" through His propitiation. Much of the current 
theology rejecting propitiation seeks in vain for life, 
not in the blood, but in human philosophy. Our Lord's 
final testimony is, "I am the Propitiation and the Life." 



THE SECOND EPISTLE OF JOHN. 



This Epistle is not catholic or general, because it is 
not addressed to* the church in all lands, but either to 
an individual or, what is more probable, to a particular 
church. (See Introduction, John's literary activity, 
p. xiii). 

1. "The elder." Probably on account of his ad- 
vanced age he indicates more than official position and 
speaks of himself as "the old man." Says Dr. Farrar, 
"A credulous spirit of innovation is welcome to believe 
and to proclaim that any, or all, of St. J ohn's writings 
were written by 'John the Presbyter.' They were; 
but 'John the Presbyter' is none other than John the 
Apostle." The belief that there were two J ohns arose 
from a misunderstanding of a bungling sentence of 
Papias, a third-rate writer in the generation next after 
the five Apostolic Fathers. 

"Unto the elect lady," "or an elect lady, or the lady 
Electa, or the elect Kyria, or Electa Kyria," meaning 
either a person of whom, nothing more is recorded, or a 
company of believers constituting a local church 

168 



2 JOHN. 



1. The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love 
in truth; and not I only, but also all they that know the truth; 

2. for the truth's sake which abideth in us, and it shall be with 
us for ever: 



addressed as a lady, just as the general church is styled 
the Bride. The real meaning of this address will prob- 
ably never be satisfactorily determined. 

"And her children." Either the offspring of the 
person addressed or the members of some particular 
Christian society regarded as a mother, as in Gal. 
iv. 26. 

"All they that know." Literally "that have come to 
know." (1 John ii. 3.) Here is a strong indication 
that a church is addressed, for how could the children 
of one woman be known and loved by the whole Chris- 
tian world? Every true believer in Christ belongs to 
the Holy Catholic Church, which, according to the 
Apostles' Creed, properly punctuated, is defined as ''the 
communion of saints," of which "the love of each for 
every other is the essential condition of existence." 
Christian love goes out towards Christian character 
wherever it exists. 

2. "For the truth's sake." John has given in his 
writings two personal definitions of the truth: "I am 
the truth" (John xiv. 6), and "he shall give you another 
Paraclete, that he may abide with you forever, even 
the Spirit of truth," who vitalizes the truth by identi- 



I/O HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



3. Grace, mercy, peace shall be with us, from God the Father, and 
from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. 

fving himself with Jesus, its author. In both cases it 
is said that abiding "in us" of the personified truth 
"shall be forever." This indicates that the Gospel of 
John and this Epistle flowed from the same pen. 

3. "Grace, mercy and peace shall be with us." A 
prediction and assurance, rather than a prayer. TTith 
this triplet of divine graces, in the same order Paul 
twice salutes Timothy and once Titus. Jude makes a 
variation thus: "Mercy, peace and love." Grace is 
favor to sinners; mercy is compassion for their misery, 
and peace is the well-being which follows pardon and 
renewal. 

"From God the Father." He is their source. The 
atonement itself did not originate with the Son to pla- 
cate a wrathful God, as some falsely teach, but with 
God, the moral governor of the universe, that He 
might save all who would accept offered mercy. 

God is the Father, in the evangelical sense, of 
all who have received the Son. (John i. 12.) The 
"New Testament nowhere teaches the soft doctrine 
that God is the Father of impenitent sinners. He 
is the Father of the Divine Son and of all on whom 
the image of His Son is impressed by the Holy Spirit in 
the new birth. All who are morally like God, hating 
what He hates, and loving what He loves, are figura- 



2 JOHN. 



'71 



4. I rejoice greatly that I have found certain of thy children 
walking in truth, even as we received commandment from the 
Father. 



tively called sons of God, and all who are like the devil 
in conduct and character are called the children of the 
devil. (John i. 12; 1 John iii. 9, 10, note.) 

"In truth." Truth occurs five times in this brief 
Epistle. 

"And love." Love is found four times, either as a 
verb or as a noun. These qualities are the essentials of 
the Christian character. 

4. "I rejoice greatly." The epistolary aorist. 

"Thy children walking in truth." Squaring their 
lives by the rule of Christian truth. The occasion of 
John's joy is cognate to that of the angels, as disclosed 
by our Saviour in Luke xv. 7. The phrase, "of thy 
children," would seem delicately to hint that not all 
the children of that mother, or members of that church, 
were walking in the highway of holiness. 

"Even as we received commandment." This is 
another key-word of the Epistle, in which it occurs four 
times. Love, truth and obedience; these are the three 
leading ideas, which partly imply and partly supple- 
ment one another. "Obedience without love becomes 
servile; love without obedience becomes unreal; neither 
of them can flourish outside the realm of truth." 
(Dr. A. Plummer.) 



172 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



5. And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote to thee 
a new commandment, but that which we had from the beginning, 
that we love one another. 

6. And this is love, that we should walk after his commandments. 
This is the commandment, even as ye heard from the beginning, 
that ye should walk in it. 



5. "I pray thee." He entreats to the exercise of 
the full privilege of Christian fellowship, implying 
that there are degrees of love. The new birth im- 
plants love. The fulness of the Spirit perfects love. 

"New commandment." He prays rather than com- 
mands to love one another, as Christ taught. 

"We had." In this entire Epistle John identifies 
himself with his readers, Christian with Christians. 

"From the beginning." See 1 John ii. 7, note. 

6. "And this is love." It is known by obedience, 
its fruit. "In verse 5 obedience prompts love; here 
love prompts obedience. This is no vicious logical cir- 
cle, but a healthy moral connection." Love strives to 
realize in detail every single command, while love is 
the essence of them all. 

"Even as ye heard." The allusion is to primary in- 
struction in Christian morals. 

"Ye should walk in it," i. e., in brotherly love. The 
second person is here used because in the beginning 
the persons addressed were the catechumens and the 
apostles were the catechists. "It" here refers to love, 



2 JOHN. 173 
7. For many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they 



which is a safeguard against erroneous doctrine next 
named. 

7. "Many deceivers." Wrong opinion respecting 
fundamental truth sooner or later begets wrong action. 

"Are gone forth," or went out from the Christian so- 
ciety to do their evil work. The tense hints a definite 
succession of heretical teachers. This implies the ex- 
istence of some form of church government in John's 
day. 

"Into the world." Not into a rival religious organ- 
ization. Their errors sapped their piety and made 
them world] ings and not saints. 

"Who confess not Jesus Christ coming in the flesh." 
He is the object of their denial, the Incarnate Messiah. 
These deceivers are here described as denying not 
merely the fact of the Incarnation, but its possibility. 
Says Dr. A. Plummer on this text and on 1 John iv. 2, 
in both of which participle "coming" or "having come" is 
used, "In both passages the A. Y. and K. Y. translate 
as if we had the infinitive mood instead of the participle. 
The difference is, that with the participle the denial is 
directed against the Person, 'they deny Jesus'; with 
the infinitive it is directed against the fact, they deny 
that He cometh or has come. Note that Christ is never 
said to come into the flesh. This would leave room for 



174 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. This is the 
deceiver and the antichrist. 

8. Look to yourselves, that ye lose not the things which we 
have wrought ; but that ye receive a full reward. 

9. Whosoever goeth onward and abideth not in the teaching of 



saying that the Divine Son was united with Jesus after 
He was born of Mary; which would be no true Incar- 
nation." 

"The deceiver and the antichrist." The definite ar- 
ticle is quite important. See 1 John ii. 18, note. 

"Many antichrists." Many who exhibit the spirit of 
the antichrist may be spoken of individually or col- 
lectively as "the antichrist." There is reason for be- 
lieving that this character will shortly before the end 
of the world appear in some remarkable person an- 
tagonizing Christ. 

8. "Look to yourselves." Watchfulness and self- 
examination are required in view of the peril just an- 
nounced. In the K. V. the pronoun "we" is changed 
to "ye" in the clauses "we lose" and "we receive." 
This would signify, "Take heed that these deceivers do 
not undo the work which apostles and evangelists have 
wrought in you, but that ye receive the full fruit of it." 
The apostate himself is the greatest loser. 

9. "Whosoever goeth onward." The best manu- 
scripts thus put "goeth onward" in place of "trans- 
gresseth." All Christians are exhorted to go on unto 



2 JOHN. 



175 



Christ, hath not God : he that abideth in the teaching, the same 
hath both the Father and the Son. 



perfection in the application of gospel truth to the ex- 
tinction of depravity and the development of Christ- 
like characters, but not to advance beyond the limits 
of revealed truth. "These antichristian Gnostics were 
advanced thinkers," regarding themselves as "the il- 
lumined" who had outgrown the Gospel, which was all 
very well for the ignorant masses, the unwashed mob, 
but they could appreciate a speculative philosophy far 
above the trite and narrow truths of Christianity. 
"There is an advance which involves desertion of first 
principles; and such an advance is not progress, but 
apostasy." 

"The doctrine of Christ." Truths revealed in His 
own person, words and works and through the lips of 
His apostles and the pens of His evangelists and the 
characters of His saints. 

"Hath not God." Hath no saving knowledge of 
Him whom he claims to know more perfectly. 

"Abideth in the doctrine." Regards Jesus Christ 
as an infallible Teacher and trusts in Him and in Him 
only for salvation. Hath the Father and the Son. 
Through the Spirit of adoption He cries, Abba, Father, 
for the first time, and recognizes Jesus Christ as both 
Saviour and Lord. "^N~o man knoweth the Son but the 



176 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



10. If any one cometh unto you, and bringeth not this teaching, 
receive him not into your house, and give him no greeting: 

11. for he that giveth him greeting partaketh in his evil works. 

12. Having many things to write unto you, I would not write 



Father, and no man knoweth the Father but the Son 
and he to whom the Son may reveal Him." 

10. If any one cometh unto you." As a teacher to 
point out the way to eternal life in the light of the glow- 
worm of human philosophy, instead of Jesus Christ, 
the Light of the world. 

11. "Partaketh in his evil works." This implies 
that the doctrinal errors in question are of such a char- 
acter as to bear the fruit of sinful conduct. The orig- 
inal word for "partaketh" implies more than sharing 
in definite acts. "It suggests a fellowship with the 
character of which they are the outcome." It is quite 
evident that John forbids the evangelical believer mak- 
ing his house a home and headquarters of false teach- 
ing. 

12. "Not with paper and ink." "Perhaps we may 
here trace a sign of the failing powers of an old man, 
to whom writing is serious fatigue." (Dr. A. Plum- 
mer.) The paper is the Egyptian papyrus, which was 
costly. Hence, possibly, the brevity of John's Epis- 
tles. Parchment was still more expensive. Ink in 
those time was a mixture of soot and water, or of lamp- 
black and gall ^uice. s 



2 JOHN. 



177 



them with paper and ink; but I hope to come unto you, and to 
speak face to face, that your joy may be fulfilled. 
13. The children of thine elect sister salute thee. 



"Face to face." "Mouth to mouth" is the Greek. 

"Joy may be full." Says Bishop Alexander, "The 
high associations with which this phrase is connected 
lead us to suppose that it would scarcely have been apj 
plied by St. John to any meeting but one of peculiar 
solemnity, after a cruel and prolonged separation, 
which had threatened to be eternal." 

13. "The children . . . salute thee." The ab- 
sence of any salutation from the elect sister harmo- 
nizes with the theory that "elect lady" is not a person, 
but a particular church. But it fits the other theory 
just as well, for Kyria's sister may be dead or absent, 
and the nephews of Kyria may be in business in Ephe- 
sus and intimate with John. 

"Keceive him not into your house." He is on the 
devil's errand, do not help him along. "St. John is at 
once earnestly dogmatic and earnestly philanthropic; 
for the Incarnation has taught him the preciousness of 
man and the preciousness of the truth/' (Liddon.) In 
declining to receive an erroneous religious teacher we 
must be quite sure that he is overthrowing doctrines es- 
sential to salvation, doctrines which weaken the motive 
to immediate repentance, which lessen the turpitude of 



178 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



sin, or detract from Christ's divinity and His power to 
save. We must make it plain to the man concerned 
and to the public that our coldness toward him is not 
prompted by personal ill-will, but it is designed as a 
safeguard against giving a quasi endorsement to a 
teacher who is subverting the fundamentals of the Gos- 
pel and destroying the souls of our own children by the 
infection of his errors. There is this limit to Chris- 
tian charity: it must not be shown to one man in such a 
way as to be morally and spiritually harmful to others, 
possibly to our own household ; still less must it be 
shown in such a manner as to do more harm than good 
to the unwelcomed teacher. The problem is quite dif- 
ficult. Yet it is obvious that were the pronounced 
heretic treated as if he were a true believer his oppor- 
tunity of doing harm by perverting souls would be 
greatly increased, and the errorist might be confirmed 
in his fatal departure from saving faith. Says Clem- 
ent, in an interesting picture of family devotion, "But 
I think that it is not proper even to pray with such 
persons, since in prayer which is made in the home 
after they arise there is a salutation, a token of glad- 
ness and peace." 

"Short as the Second Epistle is and having more than 
half its contents in common with the First or the Third 
Epistle, our loss would have been great had it been 
refused a place in the Canon, and in consequence been 



2 JOHN. 



179 



allowed to perish. It gives us a new aspect of the 
apostle; it shows him as the shepherd of individual 
souls. It is for the sake of particular persons about 
whom he is greatly interested that he sends the letter, 
which is a less formal and less public utterance than the 
First Epistle. We see the apostle at home rather than 
in the church, and hear him speaking as a friend rather 
than a metropolitan. The apostolic authority is there, 
but it is in the background. The letter beseeches and 
warns more than it commands." (Cambridge Bible 
for Colleges.) 

The Second and Third Epistles of John, together 
with those of James and Jude, 2 Peter, were at first 
antilegomena, spoken against as not worthy of a place 
in the sacred Canon. These two Epistles of John are 
not contained in the Peshito Syriac version, nor are 
they now accepted by the Syrian church. There is, 
however, very little ante-Mcene evidence against their 
authenticity. They were included in the Old Latin 
version. Clement of Alexandria wrote short notes 
upon them. The doubt about them probably arose 
from the fact that their authorship was at first ascribed 
to an unknown man, John the elder, and not to the 
apostle. This discredited them in the early centuries. 



THE THIRD EPISTLE OF JOHN. 



For the historical setting of this Epistle see Intro- 
duction, p. xxi. 

The record of this brief letter in the sacred Canon 
was probably designed by the spirit of inspiration to 
afford a portrait of some first century church members. 
"Brief as it is, it has the true 'note' of inspiration — 
that indefinable but unmistakable something which is 
found in all the Bible, and is found nowhere else. It 
speaks to a person and of persons. The church is the 
background against which the figures of three individ- 
uals stand out in bold relief — Gaius, Diotrephes and 
Demetrius," of whom we have no other glimpse in his- 
tory. As we study them to avoid their faults and imi- 
tate their virtues, we will discover that behind these 
ancient names stand modern characters. 

"Gaius." In the momentary light which falls upon 
him in this Epistle we clearly see a full-orbed and sym- 
metrical Christian. He is not to be identified with 
either Gaius of Macedonia (Acts xix. 29), Gaius of 
Derbe (Acts xx, 4), or Gaius of Corinth (Kohl xvi. 23). 



3 JOHN. 



181 



1. The elder unto Gaius the beloved, whom I love in truth. 

2. Beloved, I pray that in all things thou mayest prosper and be 
in health, even as thy soul prospereth. 

3. For I rejoiced greatly, when brethren came and bare witness 
unto thy truth, even as thou walkest in truth. 



Gaius was a name as common among the Bomans as 
Smith, is with us. 

"Whom I love in truth," or love truly. The word 
"wellbeloved" implies that the whole circle of the 
Christian friends of Gaius cherished the same affection 
for him. 

2. "I pray that in all things." Here the E. V. cor- 
rects a misleading translation of the A. V., which rep- 
resents John as placing health and prosperity above all 
things. 

"And be in health." The inference is natural that 
the bodily health of Gaius was infirm. The wish for 
his prosperity may imply that his worldly affairs were 
not in the best condition. His spiritual life was healthy, 
vigorous and progressive, so that John could form no 
higher wish for him than that he might prosper in tem- 
poral things in the same measure. If he was a million- 
aire in grace this would make him a millionaire in gold. 
"The verse is a model for all friendly wishes of good 
fortune to others." 

3. "When brethren . . . bare witness unto thy 
truth." This implies that Gaius had stood as a rock 



182 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



4. Greater joy have T none than this, to hear of my children 
walking in the truth. 

5. Beloved, thou doest a faithful work in whatsoever thou doest 
toward them that are brethren and strangers withal; 



against the assaults made by the enemies of Christian 
truth. 

"Even as thou walkest in the truth." He was an ex- 
ample of the truth which he championed. "Defend- 
ers of the faith have not always been livers of the 
faith." Butler rightly satirized those who themselves 
morally loose, 

u Prove the doctrine orthodox 
By apostolic blows and knocks." 

A holy life is an unanswerable argument. 

4. "I have no greater joy." Xext to the joy of the 
angels over repenting sinners is the joy of pastors over 
the steadfast believers. It has been well said that it 
requires greater pastoral effort to keep a soul converted 
than to get him converted. John's words imply this. 

"My children." Christians, especially those under 
John's apostolic care while living in Ephesus. 

5. "Thou doest a faithful work." He was not only 
a sturdy advocate of the truth, but also a strenuous 
Christian worker. "Here we catch just a glimpse of 
the evangelizing activity of the early church. Error 
was busy. Many deceivers had gone forth into the 
world. But truth was busy also." 



3 JOHN. 



■83 



6. who bare witness to thy love before the church: whom thou 
wilt do well to set forward on their journey worthily of God : 

7. because that for the sake of the Name they went forth, taking 
nothing of the Gentiles. 



"And strangers withal." The emphasis upon these 
words may be an answer to a slander uttered against 
Gaius, that he had neglected those who have a more 
pressing claim upon the common ties of Christian 
brotherhood. 

6. "Bare witness . . . before the church." To 
right this wrong it seems that the church was assembled 
and a public testimonial to the hospitality of Gaius was 
made, and John was present and witnessed the cor- 
diality of this expression of confidence and love. "It 
enhanced the hospitality of Gaius that the Christians 
whom he entertained were personally unknown to 
him." 

"Whom thou wilt do well." A gentle hint to Gaius 
that there will be future opportunity for such hospi- 
tality. 

"Worthily of God." In a manner worthy of God, 
whose servants both they and you are. 

7. "For the sake of the Name." The word "Jeho- 
vah" was to the Hebrews unutterable, because of an er- 
roneous interpretation of Lev. xxiv. 16, "He that blas- 
phemeth the name of Jehovah shall surely be put to 
death." The Jews understood this to forbid the utter- 



1 84 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



ance of His name, because this verb in one of its forms 
signifies to utter, and in another form signifies to blas- 
pheme. The Jews have two ways of avoiding the ut- 
terance of Jehovah; one is by substituting the word 
Adonai, Lord; the other is to omit it entirely and say 
"the Name." When in the New Testament the Name 
designates Jesus Christ, as in Acts v. 41; James ii. 7, 
it is a strong argument for His Godhood, Jehovah of 
the Old Testament being the Jesus of the New. Hence 
it is the triune Name into which the Christian is bap- 
tized. It is "in essence the sum of the Christian 
creed." (Bishop Westcott.) The Name brings be- 
fore the mind that aspect of the Divine Person which 
is realized by faith in each action of the spiritual life, 
whether "believing in the name," or "asking," or "hav- 
ing life." 

"Taking nothing of the Gentiles." Bringing the 
Gospel to them prepaid, lest the preachers should be 
suspected as actuated by a desire to get gain. "Hence 
the necessity for men like Gains to help. These mis- 
sionaries declined 'to spoil the Egyptians' by taking 
from the heathen, and therefore would be in great dif- 
ficulties if Christians did not come forward with assist- 
ance. We are not to understand that the Gentiles of- 
fered help which these brethren refused, but that the 
brethren never asked them for help. The Gentiles 
cannot well mean Gentile converts. What possible 



3 JOHN. 



I8 5 



8. We therefore ought to welcome such, that we may be fellow- 
workers with the truth. 

9. I wrote somewhat unto the church : but Diotrephes, who loveth 
to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. 



objection could there be to receiving help from them?" 
They should be early trained to support the Gospel. 

8. "We therefore." The pronoun is emphatic in 
the Greek standing over against the pagans. This is a 
strong argument for generous missionary contribu- 
tions. John says "we," not "you," not merely to soften 
the injunction, but to hint that preachers of all grades, 
up to the apostles themselves, should be missionary 
givers, in order that 

"We may be fellow-workers with the truth." Rather 
become their fellow-workers for the truth. 

9. "I wrote somewhat unto the church." These 
words imply that John regarded this letter of small 
importance. The fact that Divine Providence has 
not rescued it from oblivion confirms the author's esti- 
mate. "To escape from the difficulty supposed to be 
involved in the loss of an apostolic letter several early 
authorities introduced 'would/ I would have written." 
(Bishop Westcott.) Thus reads the Yulgate version, 
the standard of the Eoman Catholic Church. It is 
probable that Diotrephes destroyed the only copy, be- 
cause of his hatred of its author and of the committee 
who brought it to his church. 



1 86 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



"But Diotrephes." The presence of a man so un- 
lovely, self-seeking and unscrupulous in the Christian 
church so early as the first century is indeed surprising. 
But more astonishing still is his treatment of the be- 
loved John, the last living apostle, the last link be- 
tween the incarnate Son of God and all subsequent 
generations. We are not surprised that so pure a man 
as John should be victim of a calumniating tongue, but 
we are surprised that such a poisonous tongue should 
hiss in the mouth of a prominent professed disciple of 
the meek and lowly Jesus. We do not know what of- 
ficial position in the church he held, whether he was a 
preacher or a layman. If he was an elder he must 
have been a ruling elder and not a teaching elder. But 
we have no proof that he was a presbyter or priest of 
the particular church in question. We are inclined to 
think that he was a purse-proud layman, preferring to 
be a Caesar in his own country village to being the sec- 
ond man in Rome. We are inclined to think that 
Gaius was the long suffering pastor of this contentious 
bellwether which troubled his flock and put the shep- 
herd in constant fear. See remarks on the Third 
Epistle in the Introduction, p. xiv. The presence of 
such a headstrong man in any local church, tyrannizing 
the members and terrifying the pastor, reconciles the 
writer to a well-guarded episcopacy to afford protection 



3 JOHN. 



10. Therefore, if I come. I will bring to remembrance his works 
which he doeth, prating against us with wicked words: and not 
content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and 
them that would he forbiddeth, and casteth them out of the church. 



to young and inexperienced pastors as well as counsel 
and strength to feeble churches. 

"Loveth . . . preeminence." In creed he seems to 
be orthodox, but in ambition he is Satanic. 

"Keceiveth us not." His non-reception of John 
("us" here means "me") is the rejection of his au- 
thority. He wishes his church to be independent of all 
supervision. He must rule alone, "the monarch of all 
he surveys." 

10. "Prating against us." Accusing me falsely 
with malicious words. The literal Greek is "throwing 
up bubbles," indulging in charges as hollow and as un- 
substantial as soap bubbles. One sin begets others. 
This man's vaulting ambition and abnormal self-asser- 
tion inspire slander and lying, and finally injustice by 
the wrongful exclusion of innocent persons from the 
church. 

"Casteth out of the church." Probably under the 
forms of ecclesiastical procedure, as Christ was con- 
demned, or they may have been frozen out by un- 
brotherly and cold treatment. "It is difficult to realize 
the circumstances of the case. It may perhaps be rea- 
sonably conjectured that Diotrephes regarded the re- 



1 88 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



11. Beloved, imitate not that which is evil, but that which is 
good. He that doeth good is of God: he that doeth evil hath not 
seen God. 



ception of the brethren as an invasion of his authority." 
(Bishop Westcott.) 

11. "Beloved." This sweet word, after this list of 
words harsh and bitter, reminds us of the couplet of 
the American poet: 

" And silence like a poultice comes 
To heal the blows of sound." 

'Imitate not evil." A much needed prohibition, for 
men are very prone to imitate a career of successful 
villany. 

"He that doeth good is of God." His right 
conduct comes from the reception of the grace of 
God by faith, and from obedience to His will. It was 
a maxim of the saintly John Fletcher, "All our good- 
ness is of God, all our evil is of ourselves," because we 
choose to retain it rather than its proffered cure by 
Christ the great Physician. Bishop Westcott suggests 
that John is warning against the Gnostics who dis- 
paraged holiness as not necessary to those who have a 
deeper insight into truth, that is, to the intellectually 
illuminated, such as they proudly professed to be, as- 
serting that they had no need of the atonement made 
by Jesus Christ. See note on 1 John i. 8. 



3 JOHN. 189 

12. Demetrius hath the witness of all men, and of the truth itself: 
yea, we also bear witness ; and thou knowest that our witness is 
true. 

13. I had many things to write unto thee 3 but I am unwilling 
to write them to thee with ink and pen: 



12. "Demetrius hath good report." In contrast with 
the abhorred behavior of the ecclesiastical "boss" (par- 
don the political term), just described, is the commenda- 
ble example of Demetrius whose conduct is to be imitated. 
He has a threefold testimonial to his moral uprightness 
and Christian excellence: (1) The favorable impres- 
sion he has made upon the public; (2) truth herself 
commended him as realizing her ideal of Christian 
character. Possibly this refers the public impression 
to the agency of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth; 
and (3) the testimony of St. John and his intimates. 
We have no further knowledge of Demetrius. That 
he is the silversmith who led the mob in Ephesus 
against Pau], but now, like Paul, advocating the faith 
which he once destroyed, is a mere conjecture. "It is 
likely from the context that Demetrius was the bearer 
of this letter." (Bishop Westcott.) "Thou knowest"— 
the singular instead of the plural is the best authenti- 
cated. The change to the plural was probably made 
in some manuscripts to suit the erroneous idea that this 
is not a private but a general Epistle. 

13, This conclusion closely resembles that of the 



I QO HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



14. but I hope shortly to see thee, and we shall speak face to 

face. Peace &e unto thee. The friends salute thee. Salute the 
friends by name. 



Second Epistle. This suggests that they were both 
written at about the same time. 

14. 'Teace be with thee." The triune blessing full 
of gospel meaning. 

Internal peace of conscience, 

Fraternal peace of friendship, 

Supernal peace of glory. 

"By name." As Jesus the good Shepherd calleth His 
own sheep by name. 



THE END. 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES IN THE FIRST 
EPISTLE OF JOHN. 



It is said in the Encyclopaedia Britannica that the 
persons addressed in this Epistle are "the instructed," 
and that the author's aim is "a deepening of the spirit- 
ual life and a confirmation of faith." To contribute 
something to this worthy aim I have deemed it a fitting 
occupation for the sunset hour of my life to voice to the 
whole company of believers "the message" of St. John, 
the aged, respecting the reciprocal indwelling of God 
in the soul, and of the soul in God as a result of love 
made perfect. It is also appropriate to the purpose of 
this book to divest the message of those misinterpreta- 
tions which make it discordant and self-contradictory, 
and to set in a clear light the testimony of the last sur- 
viving eyewitness of our Lord to the utmost extent of 
salvation from sin under the dispensation of the Holy 
Spirit. Hence should this series of exegetical studies 
be occasionally polemical, it will not be from choice, 
but from necessity in vindicating vital truth and ban- 
ishing deadly error. 

As writers, Paul and John widely differ in style, not 

in sentiment. Paul elaborates logically; John seizes 

191 



192 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



by intuition. "Paul writes now in a storm of argu- 
ment, then in a humble strain of self-forgetful, self- 
abasing expostulation and entreaty ; now eloquently 
on high abstract truths, now in exquisite descriptions, 
then about the homeliest and simplest duties. St. John 
moves in a calm sphere of certainty among the very 
highest, grandest and largest of Christian truths, rais- 
ing the general outlines of human life into the same at- 
mosphere till they are illuminated and penetrated by 
the clear rays of light and love. All is simple, broad, 
clear, calm, sure. He writes at once with the 
most commanding authority, and the most loving ten- 
derness; the profoundest wisdom, and the most touch- 
ing simplicity; the most searching knowledge of the 
human heart and its difficulties and failures, and the 
most elevating and bracing courage and confidence; 
the gentlest affection, and the sternest and most pitiless 
condemnation of wilful departure from truth in prac- 
tice or opinion. " Paul begins his epistles with a state- 
ment of his apostolic authority; John begins with the 
announcement, in the very first sentence, of the truth 
that he purposes to set forth. In the Eevelation it is 
the things which must shortly come to pass. In his 
Gospel it is the supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ. 
"The Logos was God." Hence we have one dogmatic 
Gospel. In his First Epistle it is the veritable humanity 
of Christ who dwelt among men in a real, material body 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES. 



193 



attested by three of the five special senses, "which we 
have heard, which we have seen with our eyes ; which 
we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of 
the Logos of life." Hence the teaching of John in this 
Epistle turns upon the person of Christ. The occasion 
of this controversial Epistle was the denial of this fact 
which an erroneous philosophy, extant in the apostolic 
age in spirit, but not yet developed in form, could not 
harmonize with the sinlessness of the incarnate Son of 
God. This inchoate philosophy which began to trouble 
the church, even in Paul's lifetime, as he hints in the 
epistle to the Ephesians and Colossians, and in the Pas- 
toral Epistles, and was more fully developed before 
the death of John, is by many asserted to be that doc- 
trine of Gnosticism called dualism, the existence of two 
original principles, good and evil, the evil being inher- 
ent only in uncreated matter from which the Creator of 
man could not expel it when He fashioned it into an 
envelope for the human spirit. It contains several ne- 
gations of Christian theology, among which are these 
two : First, the denial of Christ's sinlessness as an intel- 
ligence acting through a material organism; and sec- 
ondly, the doctrine that since all evil is in matter, the 
soul is incapable of the touch of sin, since there is no 
point of contact between mind and matter in the hu- 
man constitution. In order to avoid so repugnant a 
doctrine as sin in the person of Christ, and to harmo- 



194 



HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



nize His perfect holiness with their philosophy, its advo- 
cates denied the reality of His body, and taught that it 
was only a sham, a phantom, a seeming body. Of 
course this would overturn the foundations of the 
temple of Christian truth, reducing the atonement, the 
death and the resurrection of the God-man from sub- 
stantial verities to empty shadows, mocking human 
hopes. When John, the aged, sits down to write this 
address to the churches, probably personally delivered 
(Bengel) — for it has neither the inscription nor the 
conclusion of an epistle — he looks this incipient false 
doctrine of dualism that was " in the air " squarely in 
the face, and with two strokes of his pen he smites it 
to the dust. The first stroke cites the testimony of 
three of the five senses to the reality of Christ's body ; 
and the second stroke declares the self-deception of 
those who while indulging in sin had no sense of a need 
of an atonement, because their inner spirits were per- 
fectly pure, all the sin which defiled them existing 
only in those irresponsible, yet very convenient, pack- 
horses, human bodies composed of matter primordially, 
eternally and incurably evil, and hence no concern of 
theirs. The first chapter is short, but it is long enough 
to annihilate dualism, although the subject is alluded 
to in the rest of the Epistle in the emphasis laid upon 
believing in Christ, "come in the flesh," and in the 
insistence that sinners can have no fellowship with a 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES. 



195 



holy God any more than darkness can be yoked with 
light. 

Docetism, the doctrine that Christ's body was a 
phantom, shows its "most ancient trace," says Dorner, 
in 1 John iv. 2, in which " the antichrists do not deny 
that Christ has come at all, but ody that He has come 
in the flesh." This denial was made in order to remove 
the Son of God, the author of all good, from all contact 
with matter which they conceived to be evil and the 
source of all evil. Since several modern exegetes of 
good repute see no traces of this philosophic error in 
John's writings, especially in his First Epistle, and there- 
fore go astray in their explanation of key texts, it may 
be well to cite such authorities as Jerome, Ignatius, 
Hagenbach, who quotes 1 John i. 1-3, iv. 2, 3, and 2 
John vii. as probable instances of John's references to 
44 the Seemers " or Docetists. Hammond's commentary 
finds in this philosophy the key to this Epistle, as do 
Sinclair's (edited by Ellicott), and Whedon's also. 
With these agree Townsend and other English scholars, 
and many German exegetes, such as Liicke, Schmidt, 
Bertholdt and Niemeyer, who insist that the main ob- 
ject of the Epistle is to oppose the errors of this science 
(gnosis), falsely so called. 

Bishop Westcott says, the false teaching with which 
44 John deals is Docetic," and he intimates that <4 mod- 
ern Idealism is a new Docetism." 



196 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

When we come to see how subversive it is of Chris- 
tian morality, we will be convinced that the beloved 
disciple did not waste his energies in opposing a harm- 
less theory. Its advocates asserted that "they them- 
selves would be saved, not by practice, but because 
they are spiritual by nature" (not by grace), "and 
that as gold, though mingled with mire, does not lose 
its beauty, so they themselves, though wallowing in the 
mire of carnal works, do not lose their own spiritual 
essence. And, therefore, though they eat things 
offered to idols, and are the first to resort to banquets 
which the heathen celebrate in honor of their false gods, 
and abstain from nothing that is foul in the eyes of God 
or man, they say they cannot contract any defilement 
from these impure abominations ; and they scoff at us 
who fear God as silly dotards, and hugely exalt them- 
selves, professing to be perfect, and the elect seed.'''' 

This philosophic error, antagonized by John, because 
of its baneful moral effect, bearing the fruit of the 
grossest sensuality, produced in some a different effect 
— not holiness, but asceticism, an attempt at sanctifica- 
tion on the plane of nature, through efforts of the will, 
and not on the plane of faith in Jesus Christ, the only 
conqueror of sin. The belief that all evil is centred in 
matter caused this class of Gnostics to abhor their 
bodies. They became ascetics, vegetarians, monks and 
nuns, contemning and vilifying marriage, and self- 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES. 



197 



scourgers, maintaining that self-flagellation is a means 
of grace equal to baptism and the Lord's Supper. Both 
parties brought great discredit upon Christianity, the 
one by violating its pure ethics, and the other by ignor- 
ing or corrupting its saving doctrines. Any error that 
substitutes human works or sufferings for faith in the 
blood of Jesus Christ as the ground of justification and 
means of sanctification is deadly indeed. John intui- 
tively saw the practical outcome of this importation of 
Oriental philosophy into the Christian Church, and he 
wrote this Epistle or discourse as the antidote. His 
method of controversy is peculiar. He does not assail 
error directly and by name, but indirectly, by stating 
basal truths repugnant to that special heresy, to the 
practical effect of which he directs the attention of the 
reader, and not to the theoretical error itself. 

Respecting the first and largest class of these Gnos- 
tics, says Dr. Whedon : " They taught that a man might 
be an outrageous violator of law, and yet a pure and 
holy saint. The Epistle is, therefore, a defence of 
Christian purity from sin against Gnostic purity in sin." 
The centre of purity from sin is Divine love linking a 
perfectly pure God to the blood-washed soul — a union 
resulting in life eternal in the case of every persevering 
believer. 

The poet Browning has quite truly indicated the oc- 
casion of this letter or tractate as the testimony of the 



198 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

last surviving eyewitness of the glorious reality of the 
incarnation now beginning to be denied. 

" There was left on earth 
No one alive who knew (consider this), 
Saw with his eyes and handled with his hands, 
That which was from the first, the Word of Life ; 
How will it be when none more saith, 4 1 saw ' ? " 

The solitariness of this surviving witness gives a 
momentous importance to this apostolic testimony to 
the reality of the historical Christ against the destructive 
philosophy which would reduce Him to a phantom and 
subvert the very corner stone of the Christian system. 
For even though Gnosticism was not yet fully devel- 
oped, its baneful foreshadowings were visible in such 
men as Simon Magus, the opponent of Peter, and Ce- 
rinthus, the antagonist of John. Hence, it may be con- 
cluded that what we see in the New Testament is 
exactly what we might expect — the early buds of Gnos- 
tic error appearing in the church and vigorous apostolic 
methods to destroy them. It is natural that the last 
surviving eyewitness should be the most emphatic. 

But John's most effectual refutation of error is in the 
bold statement of the truth as verified by experience. 
We call the especial attention of preachers of the Gos- 
pel to this peculiarity of John. Christians, if genuine, 
not nominal, cannot he reminded too often that their 
religious life is " a matter of positive, demonstrable, 
realized facts," the witness of the Spirit crying in their 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES. 



199 



hearts, Abba, Father, the transition from death to life 
consciously realized, which is the beginning of life 
eternal in the persevering believer who knows that he 
is in Christ and Christ in him, and " that God hath 
given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son," 
and is conscious of the indwelling of the Comforter and 
Sanctifier, making him a "habitation of God through 
the Spirit." 

John's message to the world is " God is light." The 
basal truth of Revelation next to the unity of God is 
His holiness, diffusive as sunlight. Men cannot be 
transformed from sin to holiness while adoring impure 
deities. For worship assimilates. We invariably be- 
come like the object of our worship. Vile, indeed, be* 
came the Greeks, because their gods were impersona- 
tions of human lusts and passions enthroned on Mount 
Olympus. Their depravity created their gods, and 
their gods in turn intensified their depravity. This is 
the origin and this is the effect of every form of poly- 
theism. But an intellectual people cannot always be 
contented with many gods. Reason, in striving to 
understand and explain the world, tends towards mono- 
theism. Dualism cannot be a philosophic finality. 
Reason unaided by Revelation, recognizing nature as a 
whole cosmos, cannot but form a conception of it which 
will be pantheistic, since it acknowledges only the 
unity of substance, law and evolution, without the unity 



200 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



of rational plan and ethical purpose and a final cause. 
The mind cannot recognize the unity of God until it 
has harmonized the discords of nature. It discovers 
goodness in the adaptations of the natural world to the 
happiness of sentient beings, but it also finds a seem- 
ing malevolence in those elements which are destructive 
of such happiness, the earthquake, the tornado, the 
pestilence, serpents created with deadly fangs and in- 
sects with poisonous stings, and animals with teeth 
adapted to tear and devour other animals and with appe- 
tites prompting to destroy life. It finds death as universal 
as life. How can one God be the author of these war- 
ring elements of good and of evil? He must be a 
double-headed monstrosity, partly good and partly evil, 
if he is a personality, or he must be impersonal and 
destitute of a moral nature. In other words he must 
be pantheistic, a nondescript force — not "making for 
righteousness " — for this is a plagiarism from Revela- 
tion, but indifferent to moral distinctions, acting alike 
through both the assassin who slays the President and 
the patriot who pours out his blood for his country. 

Hence, the concept of God in the minds of both 
pagans and philosophers involved sin. John's first 
message is to give the true concept : " God is light and 
there is not in Him any darkness at all, no, not even 
one speck." (Alford.) In the Old Testament light is 
used to signify prosperity and happiness ; in the New 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES. 



20I 



Testament it indicates clearness, beauty and glory, all 
expressed by the word u holiness." Darkness is the ab- 
sence of this quality, and the absence of happiness 
also. It is sin and misery. John's message is only 
a repetition of his Master's message to the world. 
" The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the 
Father, he hath declared him." (Westcott and Hort's 
text.) " Being the effulgence of His glory and the 
very image of His substance." (R. V.) The Son of 
God in His essential majesty was the sole expression 
of the Divino Light in His words and whole life on 
earth and in the testimony of the Spirit sent through 
His mediation. He who professes "fellowship with 
Him," or " similarity of character, hating what He hates 
and loving what He loves " (Joseph Cook), must be 
Christlike in moral character. If, instead of this, 
he walks in the darkness of sin, he lies ; he is con- 
sciously and wilfully false, and not merely self-deceived. 
So glaring is the contrast between such a man's dark 
life and the whiteness of God's character, as imported 
into knowledge by His incarnate Son, that no term 
softer than liar properly describes him. He actively 
affirms what he knows to be false when he professes to 
combine fellowship with God and the choice of darkness 
or sin as the sphere of his life. 

The central doctrine of the message, the fundamental 
truth on which the practical duties rest, is the Person 



202 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



of our Lord. There was an environment of error about 
the church. On the Jewish side was Ebionism which, 
like modern Unitarianism, regarded Christ as a mere 
man. On the philosophic side Docetism made him a mere 
phantom. A third party combined these two opinions 
in the doctrine of Cerinthus, who taught that the 
Divinity descended upon Jesus at His baptism and for- 
sook Him before His death. In the presence of these 
errors John sets forth the truth more in the form of an- 
nouncement than of argument, that Jesus has come in 
the flesh and that the denial of this is the denial of the 
Father, that there is no logical ground to stand on be- 
tween the veritable incarnation and blank atheism. The 
history of modern liberalism abundantly justifies John's 
declaration. Hence the environment of those to whom 
he delivered this address is strikingly like our own in 
the closing decade of the nineteenth century. John's 
words need no accommodation to fit modern orthodoxy 
in its conflict with Chris tological errors. While right 
opinions alone, apart from holy living, are treated as 
worthless, the historical manifestation of the Son of God 
" who laid down His life for us " is urged as the suffi- 
cient motive to godlike conduct. Simple profession 
without action is a fatal delusion. 

With John love is generally love of the brethren. 
Human weakness and aspiration are wonderfully helped 
by reason not only of Christ come in the flesh suffering 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES. 



203 



our ills, but also of the glorification of this our Elder 
Brother, the pledge of our future transfiguration into 
His glorified image to stand at last "a row of glorified 
brothers with Jesus at the head." There can be no 
other destiny for those of whose moral character in pro- 
bation it was said, " As He is so are we in this world." 

"In Him is no darkness at all." Here we note 
that the difference between right and wrong is not 
merely a question of degree, the one shading off 
into the other, but fundamental, absolute, immutable 
and eternal. A clear perception of this truth by all 
moral agents would greatly fortify ethical foundations, 
strengthen conscience and prepare the way for the re- 
ception of that solemn doctrine which superficial 
thinkers and soft sentimentalists are prone to reject — 
everlasting rewards and punishments. On this contrast 
between wickedness and holiness, suggested by John 
and sharply exhibited in the life and teachings of 
Christ, depends the whole doctrine of sin. It is not a 
mere imperfection, a disguised form of good, like a 
bittersweet medicine, ending in a cure, the stumbling 
of an infant just learning to walk, but it is enmity 
against God. Between right and wrong there can be 
no midway step, even so small as a demisemiquaver 
in music. " Good and evil may be mixed in an indi- 
vidual for a short time while in a transition state ; " in 
themselves they are contrary, and hence forever in- 



204 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

capable of union. Yet many men, restive under the 
threatened eternal punishment of the incorrigibly wicked, 
are endeavoring to bind up sin and holiness into a unity 
of character and identity of destiny. Some embrace 
agnosticism for this reason: If God is unknown and 
unknowable it may be that His moral character is utterly 
unlike that portrayed in Revelation. It may be that 
the distinction which conscience makes between evil 
and good and the feeling of guilt for sin are all illusions, 
and that the doctrine of Mansell, in his " Limits of Re- 
ligious Thought," is true, that " the infinite goodness of 
God is not explained on the supposition that its sole 
and sufficient type is to be found in the finite goodness 
of man." This is an implied denial that man at his 
best estate reflects the image of God. 

As well deny that mathematical truth is not the 
same with God as it is with men, that the multiplica- 
tion table is different with God, as to deny that ethical 
distinctions, universal as the human race and immutable 
as reason itself, are not the same with God as they are 
in man's conscience. Yet this denial is the secret hope 
of the agnostic tormented with a consciousness of sin. 
His very remorse is a credential of two realities, his 
own immortal personality, and the eternal identity of 
God's moral sense with his own moral reason. An- 
other fashionable way of uniting sin and holiness in one 
character and of destroying both is found in Pantheism, 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES. 



205 



which denies both the personality of God and of man, 
both being merged in the great soul of the world, a 
soul composed of blind forces, devoid of freedom and of 
moral action. There is no place for either sin or holi- 
ness in this view, that God and the universe are identi- 
cal. This is the theology which Boston liberalists are 
borrowing from the Brahmins of India. It affords an 
anodyne to guilt, but no incentive to holiness. Its ad- 
vocates candidly confess that it never has lifted a 
wretch out of the slums and planted his feet in the up- 
ward path, and that it is utterly unable to achieve such 
a rescue. 

There is still another conception of God which affords 
a soft and broad theology — soft enough to lull sinners 
asleep, as on a downy couch, and broad enough to save 
all sinners who die in their sins. It magnifies the love 
of God to the entire exclusion of His justice. It is for- 
ever preaching to sinners that they are children of God, 
who is too fatherly ever to shut one of His impenitent 
children out of heaven. It teaches that God is light, 
the light of love, without the rays of holiness and jus- 
tice, and that in this light all sin will ultimately evanesce. 

The safeguard against these plausible and seductive 
errors is found in the Scriptural conception of God's 
moral attributes, held by believers " who are of full 
age (Greek, perfect), even those who by reason of use 
(habit) have their (spiritual) senses exercised to discern 



206 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

(distinguish between) good and evil." The cause of 
Christian holiness would receive an instantaneous and 
permanent upward impulse, should the conviction be 
inwrought in all believers that holiness in man is an 
obligation arising from the Divine nature, and that only 
the holy can be eternally happy in the presence of a 
holy God. 

Elective studies are now quite in vogue in our col- 
leges, but perfect holiness it not optional in God's 
university. Holiness is required in order to graduation. 
This requirement is not a by-law, easily suspended in 
an emergency, but constitutional and immutable be- 
cause it is grounded not only in the Founder's will, 
but in His very nature — " in Him is no darkness at 
all." Hence there should be no darkness in us. For 
the moral character of God, the Creator, is a pattern 
after which the creature must create his own moral 
character. God has left this most valuable part of us 
for ourselves to construct after the model supplied 
by Himself : "Be ye holy, for I am holy." The 
Greek reader notes a shade of meaning in the Re- 
ceived Text not translated into English : " Become ye 
yourselves holy." It impresses upon us, probationers for 
an eternal existence of happiness or of woe, a special 
sense of responsibility to realize that we must carry out of 
this world something which we did not bring into it, and 
that something we must ourselves create, as a first 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES. 



207 



cause. God is the first cause of my existence, but I am 
the first cause of my character and hence of my destiny. 
Otherwise God is the author of all the sin in the world. 
What is it to have sin ? 

We have examined the historical setting of this 
Epistle, and have shown it is aimed to refute an error 
destructive of both the spiritual life and the moral 
principles of Christians. We have shown from the 
opening words of the Epistle that John designed the 
extinction of this Gnostic error. We are now prepared 
to examine the text most frequently urged against the 
doctrine of perfect holiness in this life. " If we say we 
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not 
in us " (i. 8). What class of people does John have in 
mind? When he says "we," does he mean all Chris- 
tians, including himself, as some expositors say, Chris- 
tians just described as walking in the light, and by the 
blood of Christ cleansed from all sin? Dean Alford 
answers this question thus, "St. John is writing to 
persons whose sins have been forgiven them (ii. 12), 
and, therefore, necessarily the present tense, 4 we 
have,' refers not to any previous state of sinful life 
before conversion, but to their now existing state, and 
the sins to which they are liable in that state." But 
the answer is not satisfactory. It implies that "we 
have sins " which we have not committed, sins to which 
we are only " liable." It accuses every angel in Heaven, 



208 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

while keeping his first or probationary state, and Adam 
and Eve in the garden of Eden, before their first sinful 
volition, of having sin, because they were liable to sin. 
It asserts a palpable contradiction, that persons cleansed 
from sin still " have sin." It makes the beloved 
apostle stultify himself by such a self-contradiction and 
absurdity. Again he perpetrates the same paradox: 
" This state of needing cleansing from all present sin is 
veritably that of all of us, and our recognition and con- 
fession of it is the very first essential of walking in 
light." I can get no other meaning out of these words 
than that sin " is the very first essential " of holy living, 
for walking in the light is walking in holiness. 

But the Alford school of interpreters may perhaps 
avoid contradiction by using sin in two different senses, 
actual sin, implying guilt, and what theologians call 
original sin, or proneness to sin, which is free from 
guilt, an impurity impregnating our being, for which 
there is no cure but death. But the very next verse 
denies any such doctrine as death sanctification, and 
asserts that the blood of Christ is the " double cure." 
" If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive 
us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, 
with no hint that the second cure, entire purification, is 
postponed to the dying hour, while forgiveness is attain- 
able now." It is as plain as the midday sun that both 
blessings, pardon and purity, are attainable now. If 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES. 



209 



"both are experienced, why should not both be con- 
fessed? With the mouth, confession is made unto sal- 
vation. Why should the confession of one part of 
salvation be commended, and the confession of the other 
part be condemned as the product of self-deception and 
untruth ? These are exceedingly difficult questions for 
the Alford expositors to answer. But this is not the 
worst of their case. Bishop Westcott, the great English 
scholar, whose commentary on this Epistle, on which he 
spent most of his life, takes rank with the commen- 
taries of Bishop Lightfoot, as most thorough and ex- 
haustive, exceeding even German accuracy, and used 
by German professors themselves — this exegete proves 
beyond all contradiction that the phrase, " to have sin," 
used only in two other texts in the Bible (John ix. 41, 
xv. 22, 24), and only in John's writings, always signi- 
fies, not a guiltless evil tendency, but guilt. " Like 
corresponding phrases, to have faith, to have life, to have 
grief, to have fellowship, it marks the presence of some- 
thing which is not isolated, but a continuous source of 
influence. It is distinguished from 4 to sin,' as the sin- 
ful principle is distinguished from the sinful act itself." 
u To have sin " includes the idea of " personal guilt." 
Bengel says, " not to have sin denies guilt." With this 
light thrown upon the text, let us read it again : " If we 
say that we have no personal guilt at the present mo- 
ment, although the blood of Jesus Christ has just this 



2IO HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



hour cleansed us from all sin, we deceive ourselves, and 
the truth is not in us." According to this, every testi- 
mony to the remission of the guilt of sin is a deception 
and a falsehood. A large mistake is Paul's joyful 
declaration : " There is therefore now no condemnation, 
no guilt, no unremitted punishment to them that are in 
Christ Jesus." The knowledge of forgiveness which 
rings as a joyful sound through the Gospels and epistles 
is a hallucination of self-deceit and untruth. This use 
of what logicians call the reductio ad absurdum we have 
resorted to to prove that when John says, " If we say we 
have no sin," he means not Christians walking in the 
light of purity and perfect love, but any unregenerate 
man who declares that he has no sin to be forgiven, no 
guilt to wash away in the blood of Christ's atonement ; 
especially any Gnostic who boasted that his spirit was 
pure by nature, and that sin could touch only his body, 
the husk of his soul. 

The theory that this pernicious philosophy was dam 
aging Christianity in Ephesus, where John spent his old 
age, lets the sunlight into his Epistle, explains every 
apparent contradiction, and illumines every obscurity. 
Above all, it relieves John of the charge that, by insist- 
ing that all Christians have sin, he extenuates that 
abominable thing which all the other Holy Scriptures 
brand with the Divine reprobation. 

Multitudes of professed disciples of Christ have vainly 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES. 



211 



justified acts of daily sin by perverting this text, 
wrenching it from its context and from the scope of 
this whole Epistle, which, from beginning to end, teaches 
that perfect love is in this life an attainable grace, and in- 
spires its readers to aspire after perfect purity through 
faith in Jesus Christ. He who hurls this text against a 
soul panting to become holy, is possibly saved from 
blasphemy only by his ignorance, " because as he (Christ 
in Heaven) is, so are we in this world," if we fill out 
the highest possibilities of grace and obtain the full 
heritage of believers. 
« Sin not." 

Sin is a small word, but it occupies a large place in 
human history. The trail of this serpent is upon us all. 
Upon the holiest of the sons of Adam it has left scars. 
In all others who have not applied the Divine cure it is 
a running sore, a virus poisoning the whole soul and 
threatening eternal ruin. Under God's moral govern- 
ment sin can never be happy. It may, for a short time, 
be delirious, and sing, and laugh, and dance. But 
delirium is not felicity. Sin grieves the heart of infinite 
love. This sorrow prompts the attempt to apply the 
atonement, the only remedy. This must be adapted to 
man's free agency. It cannot be forced upon him 
against his consent. He cannot be saved as a thing ; he 
must be saved as a person by a free compliance with 
conditions, not as a bale of goods from a burning ware- 



212 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

house, but as a person intelligently and providently se- 
curing a life preserver and binding it upon him. Such 
a life preserver God has provided in the blood of His 
Son, which John in the first chapter of his First Epistle 
announces as the perfect remedy, "the double cure," 
saving from wrath and making pure. Lest the perverse 
heart of the sinner should abuse this merciful provision 
and regard the scheme of reconciliation as a license for 
sinning, the inspired writer sets up a safeguard : " My 
little children, I write these things unto you, not to en- 
courage you in sinning, but that ye sin not even once." 
Paul, after having declared that God's plan of salvation 
is such that "where sin abounded, grace did much more 
abound," is constrained to set up a similar safeguard 
against perverting the greatness of God's mercy into a 
motive for plunging more deeply into sin. " Shall we 
continue in sin, that grace may abound ? God forbid." 
John gives the same precautionary warning in the words, 
" These things I write unto you that ye sin not." He 
might have spoken in more general terms and said, 
" The things written in all the Holy Scriptures have this 
purpose, that ye sin not." The historical parts of the 
Bible evidently have this design. They portray sin and 
its wretched consequences ; the sin of Adam and Eve, and 
the cause of exile from Eden, a life of toil and sorrow 
ending in the grave ; the sin of Cain and the brand of 
God's displeasure set upon him ; the sin of the antedilu- 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES. 



213 



vians and the all-engulfing deluge, God's broom, with 
which he swept the earth clean from sinners ; the sin of 
Sodom and the shower of fire and brimstone ; the sin of 
Israel and the captivity in Babylon; the sin of Jerusa- 
lem and its predicted overthrow by the Roman armies; 
the sin of Ananias and his wife, and their judicial death 
beneath the stroke of Divine justice. What are all 
these events but so many preachers crying out, " Sin not?" 
Should we study God's character of goodness, holiness, 
justice and truth, we should have another group of 
Gospel heralds proclaiming, " Sin not." Then should 
we gather together all the precepts and prohibitions 
of God's word in proverb, in psalm, in prophecy and 
in parable, we should have another multitude of preach- 
ers reiterating the same text, amplifying it and applying 
it in all the languages and dialects of the Babel earth 
into which this Book of books has been translated. 
" All the Divine purposes, words and judgments have 
for their aim to oppose sin, either to prevent its com- 
mission or to destroy it." (Bengel.) 

We now raise this pertinent question, " Is the God of 
the Bible aiming at an end which is practicable, or at 
an ideal impossible to be realized in this world ? " If 
we say that He is aiming at an ideal which He knows 
cannot be realized, we reflect on His wisdom and the 
efficacy of His remedy in the blood of His Son and the 
gift of His Spirit. Both are failures if they are insufri- 



214 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



cient either to prevent the commission of sin by a be- 
lieving soul, or to destroy it, root and branch, as a 
principle within. The only escape from this is either 
probation extended beyond death where the blood of 
Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit will have a 
higher efficacy — for which doctrine we must have an- 
other Bible — or a probation after Christ's second ad- 
vent when the Holy Spirit will be superseded by a more 
successful agency, the visible presence of our glorified 
Lord Jesus overwhelming sinners with His awful maj- 
esty, and sanctifying believers and keeping them pure 
by the very resplendence of His glory. But we have 
ye to find the text in the New Testament in proof that 
one sinner will be regenerated or one believer will be 
entirely sanctified after Jesus shall come with all His 
holy angels to judge the quick and the dead. This 
theory is as baseless as that of probation beyond the 
grave, so far as revelation is concerned. 

Hence we are shut up to this alternative, either the 
whole plan of salvation in the Bible is a stupendous 
failure, or it is possible for the provisions of grace to 
destroy sin in a believing soul, and to prevent its sub- 
sequent commission. 

But does not John in the same verse imply that no 
one will be able to keep from acts of conscious sin when 
he says, "And if any man sin, we have an advocate"? 
Is this hypothesis designed for the rule, or for an ex- 



SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES. 



215 



ception ? The answer is found in iii. 9, "Whosoever has 
been born of God (implying that he continues thus) is not 
committing sin (as a habit), and he cannot be sinning." 
" The possibility of his sinning is not absolutely denied ; 
but this is affirmed that the new birth and sinning 
cannot exist together" any more than theft and honesty. 
(Bengel.) 

It is a moral cannot, such as Joseph implies when 
solicited by the siren in Potiphar's house. " How can 
I do this great wickedness ? " It is the cannot of a 
person, the whole tenor of whose character, all the 
moral purposes and the fixed bent of his will, under 
grace, are all set as a flint against sin. Such a person 
does not spontaneously, deliberately and intelligently 
give himself up to a course of sin. But while losing 
sight of Christ, and under a cloud, he may be so sophis- 
ticated by the devil as to yield to some sudden, strong 
impulse, and commit a single act of sin contrary to the 
fixed purpose of his mind. Now what is he to do ? 
He can throw down the oars in despair, and go down 
the Niagara of damnation. This is what Satan desires. 
But the tender and compassionate Holy Spirit, through 
John, says to the sorrowing penitent, " You have an ad- 
vocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous." 
The whole Trinity is interested in your salvation. Try 
again in the name of Jesus Christ. 



THE ATONEMENT. 



The seven allusions to the atonement in John's First 
Epistle demand a more extended discussion, in view of 
the importance of this central doctrine of Christianity 
so strongly emphasized by St. John. 

The word "atonement" appears but once in the New 
Testament, and is in that text a mistranslation for "rec- 
onciliation," as in the R. V. of Rom. v. 11. But the 
idea of the atonement, hinted at in the Gospels, where 
it could not be intelligibly explained as a ransom for 
many (Matt. xx. 28), is after the death and resurrec- 
tion of Christ fully unfolded under such terms as 
"redemption through His blood," "gave Himself for our 
sins," " reconcile ... by the cross," " hath given Him- 
self a sacrifice to God," " Christ suffered for us in the 
flesh," " He is the propitiation for our sins," and many 
similar expressions. It is the central fact of Christian- 
ity perpetually emphasized in the Lord's Supper, which 
ordinance sooner or later is discontinued wherever the 
idea of redemption through the blood of the Son of 
God is no longer preached. When Ralph Waldo 
Emerson was pastor of a Unitarian church in Boston, 
about seventy years ago, he ceased to administer the 
Holy Communion, and being asked by his deacons for 

216 



THE ATONEMENT. 



217 



the reason for omitting this sacrament, replied that 
" it was giving undue prominence to one among many- 
good men." From the standpoint of his theology, 
which made Jesus Christ a mere man, the son of a 
Jewish sire, his answer was logical, the memorial of the 
death of Christ was an invidious distinction. 

If liberalism has no place for the atonement, ortho- 
doxy has no ground to stand on without it. Hence we 
must defend it against all assailants. We must demon- 
strate it as a fundamental fact, and we must so wisely 
state the philosophy of that fact that its enemies will 
find it impregnable. We are, however, very thankful 
that men can be saved by relying on the fact with little 
or no knowledge of the philosophy, and even with an 
exceedingly erroneous philosophy, as we shall soon see. 

But if a correct philosophy of the atonement is not 
necessary for the salvation of penitent believers, it is 
necessary to the salvation of that orthodoxy which pro- 
duces penitent believers in Jesus Christ, the Lamb of 
God which taketh away the sin of the world. The 
Gospel is under obligation to answer the inquiries 
which it has awakened by stimulating the intellect in 
all the Bible-reading nations. The question must be 
answered, 

"WHY IS THE ATONEMENT NECESSARY? 

Who or what demanded it? We pass by the first 
answer, that it was necessary to satisfy the claim of 



218 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

Satan, who had captured the sinful race of men, and 
was holding them as his prisoners. For more than a 
thousand years this was the common answer. I do 
not say the only answer, because here and there one, 
like Athanasius, and John of Damascus, declared that 
the satisfaction was paid to God the Father. But 
under the stimulus of the Gospel quickening the intel- 
lect, this theological crudity of a tribute to Satan was 
outgrown, and the way was opened for a thorough dis- 
cussion of the necessity of Christ's atoning death, for 
He must be lifted up, He must needs have suffered. 
Out of the various answers we shall have time to speak 
of only three: first, God's essential justice; secondly, 
man's obduracy in sin; and thirdly, the requirements 
of a Divine government, offering conditional pardon to 
a race of sinners. The first and the last locate the 
necessity on the Godward side, while the second locates 
it wholly on the manward side. 

I. The first theory for three hundred years widely 
prevailed in both branches of orthodoxy — Calvinism 
and Arminianism — although it logically belongs to 
that branch which teaches an unconditional election and 
a particular or limited atonement. It is grounded 
upon the necessity of satisfying that moral attribute of 
God called exact, or distributive, justice, defined by 
Webster as that "which gives every man his exact 
deserts." This principle of essential justice, or eternal 



THE ATONEMENT. 



219 



right, demands punishment for violated law. If the 
sinner is exempted from penalty, it must be inflicted 
upon some substitute who is personally not worthy of 
punishment ; otherwise, if himself guilty, he could not 
be a substitute for the guilty. He must suffer for his 
own sins. Now there are several reasons why I have 
never been able to preach this theory of the atonement. 

1. It is not exact justice to punish the innocent. 
"The soul that sinneth it shall die," says distributive 
justice. 

2. Guilt is personal and not transferable. 

3. It leaves no room for a literal and true pardon of 
sin, as Dr. Hodge concedes. Pardon, being a gracious 
remission of deserved penalty, cannot be required after 
the penalty has been fully endured by the substitute. 
Sin having been thoroughly expiated, there can be only 
a nominal, not a real, forgiveness. There is no longer 
any penalty due to sin, and of course there is none to 
remit. I cannot indorse a theory which reduces the 
New Testament doctrine of justification by faith to a 
mere sham. 

4. The punishment of innocence is repugnant to 
man's moral intuitions, variously called ethical axi- 
oms, first truths, necessary beliefs, self-evident truths. 
No system can endure or can be true which collides 
with these ultimate truths, defined by Jsoeph Cook as 
u the mode of action of Omnipotence." If it is said 



220 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



that while it is wrong for man knowingly to punish 
innocence, it may be right in God, this is denied by 
the fact that man is in the image of God and is a sub- 
ject of moral government only because there is between 
him and God a common standard of right to which 
both may appeal. Moreover, the assertion that moral 
qualities in mau may be entirely different in kind from 
the moral attributes of God makes Him an unknown and 
an unknowable being, thus strengthening the founda- 
tions of the prevalent agnosticism which is a blight 
upon modern Christendom. Every agnostic on earth 
will thank you for saying that justice in God may be 
a totally different thing from justice in man. 

5. Our next objection to the theory that the atone- 
ment is a penal satisfaction paid to distributive justice 
is that, if it is universal in extent, the inevitable, log- 
ical outcome is Universalism. For if the sins of all men 
were punished in Jesus Christ, no man can be justly 
punished, either in this world or in the world to come, 
for sins already expiated by suffering their penalty. I 
lay no foundations for the delusive doctrine of the final 
salvation of all men. 

6. Wherever it is taught that God punished His 
Son on the cross there have always been some who 
indulge in the rhetorical statement that " Christ on 
Calvary was the greatest sinner in the universe " — lan- 
guage which I have heard within thirty years. Within 



THE ATONEMENT. 



221 



that time I have heard an English Wesleyan doctor of 
divinity in public prayer represent the Father as 
"hurling the hottest thunderbolts of His wrath down 
upon the head of His devoted Son in punishment for 
the sins of mankind." 

Such statements give occasion to the liberalists to 
caricature the orthodox doctrine of the atonement, 
making the Father the embodiment of unsparing dis- 
tributive justice, a relentless Shylock demanding his 
pound of flesh ; and the Son, the incarnation of mercy 
and love, appeasing His personal wrath and making Him 
willing to be compassionate. 

II. We come now to our second division, in which 
the necessity of the atonement is located wholly in the 
obduracy of the sinful race which needs this wonderful 
display of love and sacrifice to melt it into contrition 
and obedient faith. It is commonly called 

THE MOEAL INFLUENCE THEORY, 

though moral influence is incidental to all theories. 
But here it is the principal thing, the sole need and 
aim of the atonement. Man, not God, is to be propi- 
tiated ; the work of Christ has no Godward aspect. If 
men would repent under other moral influences, the 
atonement were unnecessary. Christ is only a Saviour, 
not the Saviour. He is only one, the most prominent, 
of many moral benefactors, the efficacy of whose self- 



222 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

sacrifice for others is the same in kind. He stands at 
the head of the noble army of martyrs who by their 
unselfish labors and contagious example of heroic self- 
immolation have turned many from sin unto righteous- 
ness. If this does not discrown our Divine Lord Jesus it 
certainly detracts from His honor as the unique Saviour. 
He cannot be put into a class without dimming His 
glory. He must stand alone. 

This is our first objection. Our second is this, that 
if Christ saves only by the moral influence of His aton- 
ing death, He can save none who have no knowledge of 
Him — the countless millions who have never heard of 
Him in pagan lands, half the human race dying in 
infancy and the myriads of millions who lived and died 
before Christ came in the flesh. An atonement whose 
sole efficacy is moral influence can have no retrospective 
virtue. It must be known in order to be effectual. 
The sun must shine upon the ice in order to melt it. 
The only way to adjust this theory of the atonement to 
the whole race is to extend probation beyond death. 
This brings us to an inference for which I find no suffi- 
cient Scriptural support. With me this is an insuperable 
objection to the moral influence philosophy of the atone- 
ment. It weakens the motive to immediate repentance. 
But we cannot further dwell on this point. 

Our next difficulty with this theory of salvation 
through moral influence is that it offers no satisfactory 



THE ATONEMENT. 



223 



explanation of all those Scriptures which speak of the 
remission of sins that are past, that is, before Christ's 
incarnation ; those which declare that there is no salva- 
tion except through Him ; those which represent His 
death as a substitute, and those which present it as a 
propitiatory sacrifice. All of these texts teach that 
the atonement has a Godward efficacy. For these rea- 
sons, however popular and pleasing this view may be, 
I must reject it. 

Our last objection is that this theory always tends to 
a soft theology, a hazy view of sin and a vague and 
nebulous statement of its consequences in the life to 
come. 

THE GOVERNMENTAL THEORY. 

III. The Scripture which comes nearest to a state- 
ment of the philosophy of the atonement is Rom. iii. 
25 : " Whom God set forth as a propitiation through 
faith, by His blood, for the exhibition of His righteous- 
ness, because of the passing over of the sins before 
committed in the forbearance of God." The question 
is, What is the nature of the righteousness exhibited 
in the setting forth of Jesus Christ as a propitiation ? 
Is it the justice of the Judge or the justice of the 
Governor? In probation God is not dealing with us 
as a Judge, but as a Governor. The righteousness 
exhibited is not judicial, exact, distributive, giving to 



224 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



each his exact deserts, but rectoral, governmental, 
general justice, denned by Webster as that " which 
carries out all the ends of law, though not in every case 
through the channels of distributive justice, as we often 
see done by a parent or ruler in his dealings with those 
who are subject to his control." The atonement was 
necessary for the same reason, precisely, that the pen- 
alty of the violated law was necessary: it takes the 
place of that penalty, in the case of penitent believers, 
answering the same end as would be answered by the 
infliction of the penalty, maintaining divine law. A 
more exact definition is that of Miley : " The vicarious 
sufferings and death of Christ are an atonement for 
sin as a conditional substitute for punishment, fulfilling, 
on the forgiveness of sin, the obligation of justice in 
moral government." The advantages of this theory 
are : 

1. It can be preached without mental reservations. 

2. It does not conflict with intuitive, self-evident 
truth, and it avoids the irrational idea that Christ was 
literally made sin and became a curse. 

3. It is founded upon just and consistent views of 
the divine character. It makes no dualism or collision 
between the divine Persons, the Father punishing the 
Son. 

4. It satisfies the Protector of the divine law in 
forbearing to inflict the penalty which was threatened. 



THE ATONEMENT. 



225 



Men in expressing this truth in popular figurative 
language do not utter exact truth when they say that 
the law was satisfied. The figure is that of hypostatiz- 
ing or personifying law. Only persons can be satisfied. 

5. This theory is Biblical, harmonizing with all the 
statements and including all the facts or Scripture, 
ascribing a peculiar moral efficacy to the work of Christ, 
investing the cross with a peculiar moral influence over 
men, while its necessity lies in the Godward direction. 
This view teaches that the atonement was vicarious, 
originating in the bosom of the Father, who showed 
His love by the sufferings which wrung His heart in 
the gift of His only begotten Son. Fairbairn, in his 
recent work, thinks it one of the greatest errors of 
Christian theology to teach that God is impassible, in- 
capable of suffering. He suggests that "The Son, 
cheered by the prospect of a reward, did not suffer as 
much in the redemption of the world as did the Father 
with no hope of reward in the surrender of the Son," 
with whom He had been in delightful communion face 
to face from eternity. The sufferings of the parents 
in sending their sons to fight and die for the Union 
were different in kind but probably greater than theirs. 
This view of the atonement presents — instead of an 
antagonism between the Father, as the impersonation of 
justice, and the Son, the embodiment of love — the three 
Persons of the Trinity co-operating to the utmost in 



226 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



self-sacrifice for the salvation of men, so that at the 
funeral of every lost sonl the Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit will head the procession as the chief mourners. 

6. It affords a basis for the salvation of such pious 
pagans as live up to their best light. " They are saved 
through Christ though they know Him not." (J. 
Wesley.) How about the condition of faith in Him ? 
They have the spirit of faith and the purpose of right- 
eousness ; that is, the disposition to trust in the object 
of faith, the historical Christ, were He revealed to 
them in the Gospel, and a willingness to walk by the 
revealed law of God were it made known to them 
What is your Scriptural authority ? Jesus Christ inti- 
mates that the judgment day will proceed by the use of 
a sliding scale. Where much is given much will be 
required ; where little is given little will be required. 
St. Paul declares : 44 There is no respect of persons with 
God. For as many as have sinned without the written 
law will be judged by the law written on their hearts." 
Peter looking upon a group of God-fearing heathen at 
the headquarters of Brigadier General Cornelius, de- 
clared : 44 Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter 
of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him 
and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." 
44 Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall 
sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the 
kingdom of heaven." Mr. Joseph Cook, who defends 



THE ATONEMENT. 



227 



the rectoral theory, advocates the dcotrine of salvation 
by possessing the essential Christ where the historical 
Christ is unknown. The essential Christ is an obedient 
attitude of the will toward " the eternal Ideal required 
by self-evident truths, which has in Christ, and in Him 
only, become the historically Real." In the last day 
the Judge will say, " Come, ye blessed," not only to 
those who have enthroned the historical Christ in their 
hearts, but also to those who have exhibited towards 
His brethren, any forlorn man, the spirit of love, the 
essential element in the character of Christ — "Inasmuch 
as ye did it unto one of the least of these, My brethren, 
ye did it unto Me." The standard is so low as to be 
applicable to all who know the distinction between 
right and wrong. The rectoral theory of the atonement 
needs no probation after death. What effect does this 
have on the missionary motive ? None. That word 
stands in full force — " Go ye and teach all nations." 
While the pagan can be saved without a knowledge of 
Christ, the Christian cannot be saved while selfishly 
withholding that knowledge. I believe it is easier for 
God to save a pagan without the Bible in Bombay than 
it is to save a professed Christian in Boston without a 
disposition to send him a Bible ; in other words, with- 
out a missionary spirit. I repudiate the doctrine of 
geographical election and reprobation expressed in the 
saying, " To exchange cradles would be to exchange 
destinies." 



228 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



7. It can be preached as objectively universal in 
extent as a provision, but subjectively limited as a 
realization by a failure of free agents to fulfil its con- 
ditions. Hence it lays no foundations for Universalism. 

Dr. Edward Dorr Griffin was settled over the Park 
Street Church in 1811, when orthodoxy was a by- 
word and a reproach and hardly dared to show its 
head in any pulpit in Boston. The crisis required 
just such a master spirit, and this city felt the power 
of God working through this pulpit dynamo. From 
the day of his coming orthodoxy began to revive. He 
preached fundamental truths so plainly that the 
irreverent called this church "brimstone corner." 
But the great work which he did was to restate New 
England theology, especially to rescue the fundamental 
doctrine of a substitutional atonement from the just 
reproach of Dr. Channing that it conflicted with the 
moral intuitions. This he grandly did in developing 
and popularizing the governmental theory. Let me 
rehearse some of the themes on which he lectured on 
Sunday evenings during his four years' pastorate there 
before he went to "Williams College to save it from 
dying by promoting sweeping revivals of religion. 
These are his propositions : " Christ did not suffer the 
literal penalty of the law for us ; " " He did not satisfy 
the law of God for us ; " " Christ did not satisfy the 
distributive justice of God for us ; " " The law and dis- 



THE ATONEMENT. 



229 



tributive justice eternally demand the punishment of 
every one who has sinned ; " " The atonement consisted 
not in the obedience, but in the sufferings, of Christ, 
such sufferings as fulfilled the design of punishment 
and render the sins of believers pardonable ; " " The 
atonement was designed equally and indiscriminately 
for all men viewed as moral agents. It implies that 
all men as moral agents have natural power to comply 
with the conditions of life, and to repent without the 
special influences of the Spirit;" " The general atone- 
ment implies that all probationers have a fair chance 
to obtain eternal life." It was the elaboration of such 
propositions that arrested orthodoxy from further 
decline and sent it forth on a career of enlargement and 
reconquest of its lost ground in New England. Sub- 
stituting " gracious ability " for " natural power," and 
adding that the Holy Spirit so reproves the world as to 
enable every man to repent, I can personally, and as 
a representative of Arminian theology, say Amen to 
that philosophy of the atonement first suggested by the 
great Grotius. 



FEAR AND LOVE. 



These are the chief elements of all the religions in 
the world. The principal ingredient in all pagan sys- 
tems is dread of the gods. The only religion on earth, 
the essence of which is love, came down from heaven 
in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

St. John, speaking from experience under the inspira- 
tion of the Holy Spirit, declares, "There is no fear in 
love ; but perfect love casteth out all fear that hath 
punishment," or foreboding of future ill in consequence 
of wrongdoing. Until conscience is seared there is 
always distress in view of the broken law of God. It 
is in the Scriptures described as servile, the slave's 
dread of his stern master, as distinguished from filial 
fear, the reverence of an obedient son for his affectionate 
father. This respect for dignity and rightful author- 
ity always attends Christian love. But young converts 
and all partially developed disciples of Christ are not 
completely emancipated from fear, because the love of 
God inspired in their hearts is mingled with remaining 
evil propensities, which while not dominant, resist the 
new principle of love divine. It is quite evident that 
John's perfect love is love so eloquently portrayed by 

Paul, especially in the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, 

230 



FEAR AND LOVE. 



231 



that magnificent eulogy of love, styled by Henry 
Drummond, " The Greatest Thing in the World," the 
title of a volume with which he enriched English litera- 
ture and blessed mankind. Love even in a regenerate 
soul may be imperfect and weak. There was a time 
when John loved Jesus enough to forsake his fishing 
nets and to follow Him, but not enough to save himself 
from an unworthy ambition to steal a march on his 
brethren to seize the highest seat in the Messiah's king- 
dom next to the King. He did not then have the " love 
which seeketh not her own." From this mixed state 
of love John was saved on the day of Pentecost, 
when the hearts of the disciples were purified by faith. 
(Acts xv. 8, 9.) 

There are four quite distinct possible combinations 
and permutations of love and fear, forming four differ- 
ent characters : First, some people have neither. We 
do not refer to pagans, but men in a certain sense 
worse than ordinary heathen — Gospel hardened unbe- 
lievers. They do not love God, and they have become 
so callous through resistance to the alarming truths of 
His word that they have lost all susceptibility to fear. 
This is the most hopeless character this side of perdi 
tion. The thunderings of Sinai have lost their power 
to alarm, while Calvary has no power to draw and 
to melt into penitent love. This is a growing class. It 
is made up of multitudes who walk in chosen dark- 



232 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



ness or wallow in sensual vices. They have trampled 
on God's law till they have no respect for its Author, 
and no fear of its penalties. They have grown hard 
in our Sunday-schools and Sabbath assemblies under 
the story of the Father's great love in the gift of 
His Son. To this permanence of religious irresolu- 
tion and indifferenence all rejection of light steadily 
tends. All efforts to save men are attended by the 
possibility of their becoming worse and worse, the more 
the truth is focalized on the conscience. 

The second class is made up of those who fear with- 
out love. They have been awakened to an apprehen- 
sion of the Divine justice, and have not yet by faith 
cast themselves upon the Divine mercy, as impersonated 
in the Son of God dying for sinners. They have been 
brought under conviction for sin by the preaching of 
the law, the neglect of which is one of the great practi- 
cal errors of the modern pulpit. The whole gospel 
should be preached, its threatenings addressing the fears 
of sinners, and its promises inspiring hope in the 
penitent. John Wesley said that there were so called 
gospel services held in his day, but that all his meetings 
were law and gospel services. This may be one of the 
secrets of the rapid spread and converting power of 
early Methodism. The very first step toward benefit- 
ing this class is to bring them to see that their fear is 
the effect of conviction for sin, and to induce in them 



FEAR AND LOVE. 



233 



a loathing of sin. One great practical error of modern 
preaching is found in the slight emphasis upon sin and 
its dreadful penalty as revealed in the Word of God. 
I believe in a tearful and tender, but faithful, announce- 
ment of the terrors of the Lord as a preparation for 
proclaiming salvation through faith in Christ. The law 
is still the child-leader or tutor (Gal. iii. 24, R. V.) to 
bring us unto Christ. In patrician families in Rome 
the boy was intrusted to the care of a servant called a 
paidagogos who took him by the hand and led him, 
willing or unwilling, to school, guarding him against 
loitering and truancy by the way. Only those sin-sick 
souls who have learned by experience with the law that 
they cannot commend themselves to God by their 
works eagerly welcome the offer of pardon through 
faith in the atonement made by the Son of God. Hence 
we have always admired the brief yet comprehensive 
homiletics of the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. " The best general method of preaching is, 
1. To convince ; 2. To off er Christ ; 3. To invite; 4. To 
build up. And to do this in some measure in every 
sermon. The most effectual way of preaching Christ is, 
to preach Him in all His offices and to declare His law, 
as well as His Gospel, both to believers and unbelievers. 
Let us strongly insist upon inward and outward holi- 
ness in all its branches." 

The third class consists of those who have both fear 



234 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

and love. The impulse to service in their case is largely 
fear of the law, and not a mighty, resistless love to the 
Lawgiver moving them as npon angels' wings. They 
are not " free from the law," or " dead to the law," in 
the Pauline sense, but they are still " under the law," 
inasmuch as they derive from it, and not solely from 
love to Christ, the motive power to service. While all 
moral intelligences are under the law as the rule of life, 
all truly regenerate souls are free from the law as the 
ground of justification, and all the entirely sanctified 
are free from the law as the impulse to obedience and 
the instrument of holiness. In the one case the new 
basis of pardon is faith in Jesus Christ, and in the 
other the instrument of complete cleansing and the 
impellent to service is the love of God fully shed abroad 
in the heart by the Holy Ghost. (Rom. v. 5.) We do 
not work ourselves up into love. But it comes down 
from heaven, when with an all-surrendering faith we 
magnify the promise of our risen and glorified Christ 
to send the abiding Comforter in the fulness of 
His offices as the purifier and the inward revealer of 
Christ. 

If the census of the whole Christian Church were 
taken by an enumerator endowed with omniscience, it is 
probable that a majority of even evangelical Protest- 
ants would be found in the mixed condition of fear 
and love. They are more or less legal. Their motive 



FEAR AND LOVE. 



235 



to serve God is largely fear, and not the spontaneous 
energy of love bearing them onward as upon the 
wings of the seraphim. 

The Oberlin theology denies the existence of any 
such complexity of spiritual impulse as love and fear, 
and insists on the unity and simplicity of every moral 
act, deriving, as it is alleged, its character solely from 
the attitude of the will. Not only philosophy, but uni- 
versal human experience, strongly testifies against this 
doctrine which admits of no degrees in holiness and in 
wickedness, and makes every person, at any given 
moment, either a perfect saint or a perfect Satan. Since 
moral character lies not wholly in the will, but in the 
trend of the sensibilities and affections back of the will, 
the experience of the seventh chapter of the Epistle 
to the Romans is a frequent phenomenon in the natural 
man, as that in Gal. v. 17, is in the regenerate man, 
before he has reached the point of the crucifixion 
of the flesh with the passions and lusts (verse 24). If 
there may be persons partly spiritual and partly carnal 
(1 Cor. iii. 1-4), there may exist both fear and love in 
the same person, servile fear and Christian love. While 
this state is much better than no love, it is vastly infe- 
rior to "perfect love." When St. John uses this phrase, 
he is describing not an ideal above the reach of mortals, 
but a reality in Christian experience this side of the 
grave. The test of its possession is boldness, not only 



236 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



in the day of judgment, but boldness here and now in 
view of that day. (Alford.) 

The fourth class comprises believers who are so far 
advanced as to have love without fear. I do not think 
that John was contemplating imaginary beings, or 
angels, or the spirits of good men escaped from their 
earthly prison, when he said, " There is no fear in love." 
He was describing the highest possibilities of grace in 
men dwelling in houses of clay, men of like passions 
with himself, oppressed with life's ills, and harassed 
by the devil's fiery darts. Such as these may be so 
filled with unmixed love as to have boldness in view of 
the day of judgment long before the Judge shall de- 
scend. The secret of this boldness is told in the same 
sentence, " Because as He is, so are we in this world." 
(1 John iv. 17.) 

44 The sense of our text must be gained," says Dean 
Alford, the great English scholar, " by strictly keeping 
to the tenses of the text," especially the passage which 
I have just read : " Because as He is so are we in this 
world." Some people alter the text and make it read 
thus : " Because as He was so are we in this world." 
It is a great truth that we are as Jesus was in this 
world. He was abused, misunderstood, persecuted, 
vilified, maligned, and at last hung up between two 
thieves. He says Himself, " As they have persecuted 
me, they will persecute you." It is a great truth that 



FEAR AND LOVE. 



237 



we are in this world very much as Jesus Christ was 
when He was here, misunderstood and persecuted as 
He was. 

But that is not the utterance of John here. John 
uses the present tense and not the past. Suppose we 
alter another verb here in the text, we shall have a 
great truth, but not a truth that John announces. Be- 
cause as He is we shall be hereafter. As He is glori- 
fied we shall be hereafter ; we shall stand a row of 
glorified brothers with Jesus at the head. Splendid 
truth! But John does not announce it in this text. 
And Dean Alford insists that we shall cling to the 
exact tenses in order to get the meaning. And the 
tense is this : Because as He is, to-day, in heaven, so are 
we in this world. In what respect is the likeness ? I 
will give you Dean Alford's note on this subject. He 
was not considered a holiness fanatic. He was consid- 
ered a very level headed man, a very proper and con- 
servative Church of England man. So I give you his 
note upon it that you may see that I am not straining 
the passage at all. This is his note. He asks the 
question : Wherein is the likeness ? As J esus is to-day 
enthroned on the throne of the Father, so are we in this 
world. He says the likeness is not in the fact of trials 
and persecutions through which we are passing. It is 
not in the fact that we are the adopted sons of God, or 
beloved of God as He, the only begotten Son, is loved 



238 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



of God. In the third place, it is not by our being not 
of the world, as Christ is not of the world. In the 
fourth place, it is not in the fact that we live in love 
as He lives in love ; but in the fact that we are right- 
eous as He is righteous. This is the note of Dean 
Alford upon that subject — that we are righteous in 
this world as He is righteous. And he confirms that 
position by quoting several passages in this very Epistle 
to show that that is a favorite thought with John. He 
* refers to the 2d chapter and 29th verse. "If ye know 
that He is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth 
righteousness is born of Him." And in the 3d chapter 
and 3d verse you will find : " And every one that hath this 
hope set on Him purine th himself, even as He is pure." 
Dean Alford goes on to say that John refers to the 
fundamental truth on which our love rests, namely, like- 
ness to Christ, " because we are absolutely like Christ, 
because we are in Christ Himself, because He lives in 
us — without this there can be no likeness to Him." 
Hence we must now in this life have the moral image of 
Christ, righteousness and true holiness, not imputed, 
but imparted and inwrought, making us facsimiles of 
the Son of God. 

We here note the exact language of John. He does 
not say that perfect love diminishes or represses fear, 
but casts out, separates it from the soul. The Vulgate 
says, " casts it out of doors." Let us thank God for 



FEAR AND LOVE. 



239 



the possibility of living on the earth in this blessed 
condition, divested of all painful dread of God, or His 
law, all fear of death and of eternity. 

Is there any certain token by which a Christian may 
know that he has been perfected in love ? As there are 
several proofs of sunrise obviating the need of a tallow 
candle, so there are many proofs of perfect love. 
Apply this test : Were the roof above you to be sud- 
denly removed, and were you to see Jesus descending 
on the great white throne to judge the quick and the 
dead, what emotion would this awaken in your bosom ? 
Do you shrink away at the very thought, or would you 
hail the Judge with joy, and if possible, meet Him 
halfway? When a magnet is passed over the floor of 
a blacksmith shop every particle of iron will spring up 
and cleave to it, while not a particle of dirt will be 
attracted. The one has an affinity for magnetism and 
the other has not. Such an affinity has perfect love for 
Christ that when He, the central magnet of all loyal 
hearts, angelic and human, shall personally descend at 
His second coming, He will draw even the bodies of the 
saints out of their graves to meet Him in the air. It is 
not possible to love with all the heart, and to dread the 
same person with a tormenting fear. Such fear may 
consist with an imperfect or mixed love. Hence the 
sudden cessation of fear in a regenerate soul, aspiring 
after the fulness of love, is a proof of its experience. 



240 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

The fourth class we have already described — those who 
love without fear. 

As a writer, St. John was not so much a reasoner, 
demonstrating propositions, as he was an intuitionalist, 
announcing truths which he sees with the minds eye. 
When he attempts to reason, his intellect so rapidly 
darts through the process, that he omits one of the 
premises and comes to his conclusion, leaving us to find 
the missing link in the syllogism. Let us try to find 
the omitted premise in 1 John iv. 17 : " Herein is our 
love made (proved to be) perfect, in the fact that we 
have boldness as to the day of judgment, because even 
as He is, so are we in this world." 

The Judge will not condemn those who are like Himself; 

We, while in this world, are facsimiles of Jesus Christ; 

Therefore, we have no fear that He will condemn us. 

We have found and restored the major premise, which 
is the first proposition. 

" The sense of this text must be gained," says 
Alford, " by strictly keeping to the tenses. And when 
we have done so, wherein is the likeness to Christ 
found ? Clearly not in our trials and persecutions ; nor 
by our being not of the world as He is not of the world, 
nor in that we, as sons of adoption through Him, are 
beloved of God, even as He is beloved; nor in that 
we live in love, as He lives in love ; but in that we are 
righteous as He is righteous, ch. ii. 29, iii. 3 ff., 10, 22." 



FEAR AND LOVE. 



241 



That Alford is not speaking of the righteousness of 
Christ imputed to us is evident from his assertion, that 
" there can be no likeness to Christ unless He lives in 
us." Then, and then only, are we in Him. 

John's meaning is plainly this : As Jesus is in holy 
character to-day, enthroned with the Father, so are we 
on the earth, if we have entered into the full heritage of 
believers, the indwelling of the Divine Comforter and 
Sanctifier. The beloved apostle was not idealizing when 
he penned these words, " As He is so are we in this 
world." He was not portraying imaginary beings. He 
was speaking out of the depths of his own conscious- 
ness, illumined by the Spirit of Truth. He was enjoy- 
ing love without fear ; love filling the vessel to the 
brim, and overflowing in streams of gladness ; love the 
sole impulse to service and sacrifice. As fear is the 
first-born of sin (Gen. iii. 10), it logically follows that 
when the child is banished from the inward paradise 
restored, her hateful mother must accompany the out- 
cast child. Hence perfect love and entire sanctification 
are interchangeable phrases. 

Note the absence of any condemnation of those who 
have not passed out of the third class into the fourth, 
those in whom love is mingled with tormenting fear. 
St. John does neither depreciate nor castigate them. In 
this respect he is a model for all who preach or write 
on this glorious theme. He points the fearful saint tc 



242 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



the serene heights of love made perfect, up which the 
lion's whelp never climbed. What John implies is 
that it is better further on and higher up. He does 
not throw stones down upon the heads of Christians on 
lower levels, where the tormentor rages and roars. By 
describing the beauty and blessedness of that holy sum- 
mit, the mount of beatitudes, he lovingly invites them 
to ascend and permanently to abide in pure love, sur- 
rounded by the various temptations of human probation, 
but " kept by the power of God through faith." 

Perfect love is to be preached, " not by driving, but 
by drawing," says Wesley. There are no threatenings 
in the Word of God against the children of God. 
"If children, then heirs." 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE FIRST 
EPISTLE OF JOHN. 



BY REV. JOHN FLETCHER. 

Rev. John Fletcher, a presbyter in the Church of 
England, was the great doctrinal defender of John Wes- 
ley's Arminianism and especially of his evangel of 
Christian perfection. Dr. Dolinger says, " The writings 
of John Fletcher are the most important theological 
productions which issued from Protestantism in the 
latter part of the 18 th century." It is not an au- 
spicious omen of the future doctrinal stamina of Metho- 
dism that both her laymen and her preachers of the 
present time are becoming more and more ignorant of 
the writings of this saintly and almost seraphic cham- 
pion of their creed, who, of all believers since the 
days of the apostles, is justly deemed the nearest repro- 
duction of the beloved disciple who reclined on the 
bosom of his Master and Lord. There are two reasons 
for the neglect into which Fletcher's writings have 
fallen: (1) Because of the general disrelish of theo- 
logical controversy in the era through which the church 
is now passing ; and (2) the decline and decay of 
Calvinism in America, especially in New England, its 

243 



244 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



former citadel, against which iron system of uncondi- 
tional predestination Fletcher's " Checks to Antino- 
mianism " arrayed its irresistible polemic. The system of 
John Calvin is a dead issue, so far as its five points are 
concerned, unconditional election, limited atonement, irre- 
sistible grace, bound will, and the final perseverance of 
the saints. But there is a tenet not embraced in these 
five doctrines, but stated in the Westminster Catechism, 
which is still alive and vigorous, namely, the necessary 
continuance of sin till it is destroyed by physical death. 
Fletcher taught the possibility and obligation of holi- 
ness in this life. His doctrine was assailed by Sir 
Richard Hill (brother to the eccentric and celebrated 
Rev. Rowland Hill), who alleged that entire sanctifica- 
tion as taught by Fletcher is contrary to the ninth and 
fifteenth articles by the Anglican Church, to which both 
the contestants had subscribed. One of these articles 
teaches that " original or birth sin," as an " infection of 
nature, doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated ; " 
and the other article has this heading, " Of Christ 
alone without Sin." Fletcher's following reply, which 
extends to the end of this note, so far as it relates to 
John's First Epistle, is so appropriate to the theme of 
this volume that the author cannot forbear its quotation : 
I proceed to vindicate the holiness of St. John, who 
is the last apostle that Mr. Hill calls to the help of 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 



245 



indwelling sin, Christian imperfection, and a death 
purgatory. 

Before I show how the loving apostle is pressed into 
a service which is so contrary to his experience, and to 
his doctrine of perfect love, I shall make a preliminary 
remark. To take a passage of Scripture out from the 
context, and to make it speak a language contrary to 
the obvious design of the sacred writer, is the way to 
butcher the body of Scriptural divinity. This conduct 
injures truth, as much as the Galatians would have 
injured themselves, if they had literally M pulled their 
eyes out, and given them to St. Paul ;" an edifying pas- 
sage, thus displaced, may become as loathsome to a 
moral mind as a good eye, torn out of its bleeding orb 
in a good face, is odious to a tender heart. 

Among the passages which have been thus treated, 
none has suffered more violence than this : " If we say 
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth 
is not in us," 1 John i. 8. " That's enough for me," says 
a hasty imperfectionist : "St. John clearly pleads for the 
indwelling of sin in us during the term of life ; and he is 
so set against those who profess deliverance from sin, 
and Christian perfection in this life, that he does not 
scruple to represent them as liars and self -deceivers" 

Our opponents suppose that this argument is un- 
answerable. But to convince them that they are mis- 
taken, we need only prove that the sense which they so 



246 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

confidently give to the words of St. John is contrary, 
(1.) To his design. (2.) To the context. And, (3.) 
To the pure and strict doctrine which he enforces in the 
rest of the Epistle. 

I. With respect to St. John's design, it evidently 
was to confirm believers who were in danger of being 
deceived by Antinomian and antichristian seducers. 
When he wrote this Epistle, the church began to be 
corrupted by men, who, under pretence of knowing the 
mysteries of the Gospel better than the apostles, im- 
posed upon the simple Jewish fables, heathenish dreams, 
or vain, philosophic speculations ; insinuating that their 
doctrinal peculiarities were the very marrow of the 
Gospel. Many such arose at the time of the reforma- 
tion, who introduced stoical dreams into Protestantism, 
and whom Bishop Latimer and others steadily opposed 
under the name of " Gospellers." 

The doctrines of all these Gospellers centred in 
making Christ, indirectly at least, the minister of sin ; 
and in representing the preachers of practical, self- 
denying Christianity, as persons unacquainted with 
Christian liberty. It does not indeed appear that the 
Gnostics, or knowing ones (for so the ancient Gospel- 
lers were called), carried matters so far as openly to 
say that believers might be God's dear children in the 
very commission of adultery and murder, or while they 
worshipped Milcom and Ashtaroth; but it is certain 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 



247 



that they could already reconcile the verbal denial of 
Christ, fornication and idolatrous feasting, with true 
faith; directly or indirectly "teaching and seducing 
Christ's servants to commit fornication, and to eat things 
sacrificed to idols," Rev. ii. 20. At these Antinomians, 
St. Peter, St. James, and St. Jude levelled their epistles. 
St. Paul strongly cautioned Timothy, Titus and the 
Ephesians against them : see Eph. iv. 14, v. 6. And 
St. John wrote his First Epistle to warn the believers who 
had not yet been seduced into their error : a dreadful, 
though pleasing error this, which, by degrees, led some 
to deny Christ's law, and then His very name ; hence 
the triumph of the spirit of antichrist. Now, as these men 
insinuated that believers might be righteous without doing 
righteousness ; and as they supposed that Christ's right- 
eousness, or our own knowledge and faith, would supply 
the want of internal sanctification and external obedi- 
ence ; St. John maintains against them the necessity of 
that practical godliness which consists in not "commit- 
ting sin," and in "walking as Christ walked: " nay, he 
asserts that Christ's blood, through the faith which is 
our victory, purifies "from all sin, and cleanses from all 
unrighteousness." To make him, therefore, plead for 
the necessary continuance of indwelling sin, till we go 
into a death purgatory, is evidently to make him defeat 
his own design. 

II. To be more convinced of it, we need only read 



248 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



the controverted text in connection with the context ; 
illustrating both by some notes in brackets. St. John 
opens his commission thus, First Epistle i. 5, 6, 7 : — 
" This is the message which we have received of him 
[Christ] and declare unto you, that God is light, [bright, 
transcendent purity,] and in him is no darkness [no 
impurity] at all. If we [believers] say that we have 
fellowship with him, [that we are united to him by an 
actually living faith,] and walk in darkness, [in im- 
purity or sin,] we lie, and do not the truth. But if we 
walk in the light as he is in the light, [if we live up to 
our Christian light and do righteousness,] we have fel- 
lowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ 
his Son cleanseth us from all sin. For let no man de- 
ceive you : he that does righteousness is righteous, even 
as he, Christ, is righteous ; and in him is no sin," 1 John 
hi. 5, 7. So far we see no plea, either for sin, or for 
the Calvinian purgatory. 

Should Mr. Hill reply, that "when St. John says, 
'The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin,' the 
apostle does not mean all indwelling sin; because this is 
a sin from which death alone can cleanse us : " we de- 
mand a proof, and in the mean time we answer, that St. 
John, in the above-quoted passages, says, that "he who 
does righteousness," in the full sense of the word, " is 
righteous, as Christ is righteous;" observing that "in 
him [Christ] is no sin." So certain, then, as there is 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 



249 



no indwelling sin in Christ, there is no indwelling sin 
in a believer who does righteousness in the full sense of 
the word; for he is made "perfect in love," and is 
"cleansed from all sin." Nor was St. John himself 
ashamed to profess this glorious liberty; for he said, 
" Our love is made perfect, that we may have boldness 
in the day of judgment; because as he [Christ] is [per- 
fect in love, and of consequence without sin,] so are we 
in this world," 1 John iv. 17. And the whole context 
shows that the beloved apostle spake these great words of 
a likeness to Christ with respect to the perfect love which 
"fulfils the law, abolishes tormenting fear, and enables 
the believer to stand with boldness in the day of judg- 
ment," as being forgiven, and " conformed to the image 
of God's Son." 

If Mr. Hill urge that "the blood of Christ, power- 
fully applied by the Spirit, cleanses us indeed from the 
guilt, but not from the filthiness of sin ; blood having a 
reference to justification and pardon, but not to sancti- 
fication and holiness : " we reply, that this argument is 
not only contrary to the preceding answer, but to the 
text, the context, and other plain scriptures. (1.) To 
the text, where our being cleansed from all sin is evi- 
dently suspended on our humble and faithful walk : 
" If we walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood 
of Christ cleanses us," etc. Now every novice in Gos- 
pel grace knows that true Protestants do not suspend 



2 50 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

a sinner's justification on his " walking in the light as 
God is in the light." (2.) It is contrary to the context; 
for in the next verse but one, where St. John evidently 
distinguishes forgiveness and holiness, he peculiarly 
applies the word cleansing to the latter of these bless- 
ings : " He is faithful to forgive us our sin," by taking 
away our guilt ; " and to cleanse us from all unright- 
eousness," by taking away all the filth of indwelling 
sin. And, (3.) It is contrary to other places of Scrip- 
ture, where Christ's blood is represented as having a 
reference to purification, as well as to forgiveness. 
God himself says, " Wash ye ; make you clean ; put 
away the evil of your doings ; cease to do evil ; learn 
to do well." The washing and cleansing here spoken 
of have undoubtedly a reference to the removal of the 
filth, as well as the guilt of sin. Accordingly we read 
that all those who " stand before the throne, have both 
washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of 
the Lamb ; " that is, they are justified by, and sanctified 
with his blood* Hence our Church prays "that we 
may so eat the flesh of Christ, and drink his blood, that 
our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our 
souls washed [i. e., made clean also] through his most 
precious blood." To rob Christ's blood of its sanctify- 
ing power, and to confine its efficacy to the atonement, 
is therefore an Antinomian mistake, by which our 
* Hengstenberg's Exegesis. 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 



251 



opponents greatly injure the Saviour, whom they pre- 
tend to exalt. 

Should Mr. Hill assert, that " when St. John says, 
If we walk in the light, etc., the blood of Christ cleanses 
us from all sin, the loving apostle's meaning is not that 
the blood of Christ radically cleanses us, but only that 
it begets and carries on a cleansing from all sin, which 
cleansing will be completed in a death purgatory : " 
we answer: (1.) This assertion leaves Mr. Hill's doc- 
trine open to all the above-mentioned difficulties. (2.) 
It overthrows the doctrine of the Protestants, who have 
always maintained that nothing is absolutely necessary 
to eternal salvation, and, of consequence, to our perfect 
cleansing, but an obedient, steadfast faith, apprehend- 
ing the full virtue of Christ's purifying blood, accord- 
ing to Acts xv. 9, " God giving them the Holy Ghost, 
put no difference between them and us, purifying their 
hearts by faith," — not by death. (3.) It is contrary to 
matter of fact: Enoch and Elijah having been trans- 
lated to heaven, and therefore having been perfectly 
purified even in body, without going into the Calvinian 
purgatory. But, (4.) What displeases us most in the 
evasive argument which I answer, is, that it puts the 
greatest contempt on Christ's blood, and puts the greatest 
cheat on weak believers, who sincerely wait to be now 
" made perfect in love," that they may now worthily 
magnify God's holy name. 



252 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



An illustration will prove it. I suppose that Christ 
is now in England, doing as many wonderful cures as 
he formerly did in Judea. My benevolent opponent runs 
to the Salop infirmary, and tells all the patients there 
that the great Physician, the Son of God, has once 
more visited the earth ; and he again " heals all man- 
ner of sickness and diseases among the people, and 
cleanses " from the most inveterate leprosy by a touch 
or a word. All the patients believe Mr. Hill; some 
hop to this wonderful Saviour, and others are carried 
to his footstool. They touch and retouch him; he 
strokes them round again and again : but not one of 
them is cured. The wounds of some, indeed, are 
skinned over for a time ; but it soon appears that they 
still fester at the bottom, and that a painful core 
remains unextracted in every sore. The poor creatures 
complain to Mr. Hill, "Did you not, sir, assure us 
upon your honor, as a Christian gentleman, that Christ 
heals all manner of diseases, and cleanses from all kinds 
of leprosies ? " " True," says Mr. Hill ; " but you must 
know that these words do not mean that he radically 
cures any disease, or cleanses from any leprosy: they 
only signify that he begins to cure every disease, and 
continues to cleanse from all leprosies ; but notwith- 
standing all his cures, begun and continued, nobody is 
cured before death. So, my friends, you must bear 
your festering sores as well as you can, till death comes 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 



253 



radically to cleanse and cure you from them all." 
Instead of crying, "Sweet grace! Rich grace!" and 
of clapping Mr. Hill for his evangelical message, the 
disappointed patients desire him to take them back to 
the infirmary, saying, " We have there a chance for a 
cure before death ; but your great Physician pronounces 
us incurable, unless death comes to the help of his art : 
and we think that any surgeon could do as much, if he 
did not do more." 

If God hath appointed death to make an end of 
heart pollution, and to be our complete savior from sin, 
our opponents might screen their doctrine of a death 
purgatory behind God's appointment ; it being certain 
that God, who can command iron to swim, and fire to 
cool, could also command the filthy hands of death to 
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts. But we do not 
read in our Bible either that God ever gave to indwell- 
ing sin a lease of any believer's heart for life ; or that 
he ever appointed the king of terrors to deliver us 
from the deadly seeds of iniquity. And although the 
Old Testament contains an account of many carnal 
ordinances adapted to the carnal disposition of the Jews, 
we do not remember to have read there, "Death shall 
circumcise thy heart, that thou mayest love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart. Death shall sprinkle clean 
water upon you, and ye shall be clean : from all your 
filthiness death will cleanse you. Death will put my 



2 54 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, 
and (when you are dead) ye shall keep my judgments 
and do them." And if death was never so far honored 
under the Mosaic dispensation, we ask where he has 
been invested with higher privileges under the Gospel 
of Christ ? Is it where St. Paul says that " Christ 
hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immor- 
tality to light through the Gospel ? " It appears to us 
that it is a high degree of rashness in the Calvinists, 
and in the Romanists, to appoint the pangs of death, 
and the sorrows of hell, to do the most difficult, and, 
of consequence, the most glorious work of Christ's 
Spirit, which is powerfully to "redeem us from all 
iniquity, and to purify unto himself a peculiar people, 
[not full of all inbred unrighteousness, but 4 dead to sin, 
free from sin, pure in heart,' and] zealous of good works." 
And we shall think ourselves far more guilty of imper- 
tinence, if we nominate either death or hell to do the 
office of the final purifier of our hearts, than if we 
ordered a sexton to do the office of the prime minister, 
or an executioner to act as the king's physician. With 
respect to salvation from the root, as well as from 
the branches of sin, we will therefore " know nothing," 
as absolutely necessary, "but Jesus Christ and him cru- 
cified," risen again, ascended on high, that he might 
send the Holy Ghost to perfect us in love, through " a 
faith that purifies the heart, and through a hope which, 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 



255 



if any man hath, he will purify himself, even as God 
is pure." 

If Mr. Hill say that I beat the air, and that the text 
which he quotes in his " Creed for Perfectionists," to 
show that it is impossible to be cleansed from all sin 
before death, is not 1 John i. 7, but the next verse ; 
I reply, that if St. John assert in the seventh verse 
that ''Christ's blood," powerfully applied by the Spirit 
of faith, " cleanses us from all sin," that inspired writer 
cannot be so exceedingly inconsistent as to contradict 
himself in the very next verse. 

Should the reader ask, "What then can be St. John's 
meaning in that verse, where he declares that 'if we 
say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the 
truth is not in us ? ' How can these words possibly 
agree with the doctrine of a perfect cleansing from all 
sin?" 

We answer, that St. John having given his first 
stroke to the Antinomian believers of his day, strikes, 
by the by, a blow at Pharisaic professors. There were 
in St. John's time, as there are in our own, numbers of 
men who had never been properly convinced of sin, and 
who boasted, as Paul once did, that touching the right- 
eousness of the law, they were blameless ; they served 
God ; they did their duty ; they gave alms ; they never 
did anybody any harm ; they thanked God that they 
were not as other men ; but especially that they were 



256 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



not like those mourners in Sion, who were no doubt 
very wicked, since they made so much ado about God's 
mercy, and a powerful application of the Redeemer's 
all-cleansing blood. How proper then was it for St. 
John to inform his readers that these whole-hearted 
Christians, these perfect Pharisees, were no better than 
liars and self-deceivers ; and that true Christian right- 
eousness is always attended by a genuine conviction 
of our native depravity, and by an humble acknowl- 
edgment of our actual transgressions. 

This being premised, it appears that the text so dear 
to us, and so mistaken by our opponents, has this fair, 
Scriptural meaning: — "If we [followers of Him who 
came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repent- 
ance] say, We have no sin [no native depravity from 
our first parents, and no actual sin, at least no such 
sin as deserves God's wrath; fancying we need not 
secure a particular application of Christ's atoning and 
purifying blood] we deceive ourselves, and the truth 
[of repentance and faith] is not in us. " 

That the words are levelled at the monstrous error 
of self-conceited, and self-perfected Pharisees, and not 
at " the glorious liberty of the children of God," appears 
to us undubitable from the following reasons: (1.) The 
immediately preceding verse strongly asserts this liberty. 
(2.) The verse immediately following secures it also, 
and cuts down the doctrine of our opponents ; the 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 



257 



apostle's meaning being evidently this : — " Though I 
write to you, that 'if we say' we are originally free 
from sin, and never did any harm, 4 we deceive our- 
selves ; ' yet, mistake me not : I do not mean to con- 
tinue under the guilt, or in the moral infection of any 
sin, original or actual. For if we penitently and be- 
lievingly confess both, 4 he is faithful and just to forgive 
us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous- 
ness,' whether it be native or self-contracted, internal 
or external. Therefore, if we have attained the glori- 
ous liberty of God's children, we need not, through 
voluntary humility, say that we do nothing but sin. 
It will be sufficient, when we are 'cleansed from all 
unrighteousness,' still to be deeply humbled for our 
present infirmities, and for our past sins ; confessing 
both with godly sorrow and filial shame. For if we 
should say, 4 We have not sinned, [note : St. John does 
not write, If we should say^ We do not sin,] we make 
him a liar, and the truth is not in us ; ' common sense 
dictating that if 4 we have not sinned,' we speak an 
untruth when we profess that Christ has forgiven our 
sins.'" This appears to us the true meaning of 1 John 
i. 8, when it is fairly considered in the light of the 
context. 

III. We humbly hope that Mr. Hill himself will be 
of our sentiment if he compare the verse in debate 
with the pure and strict doctrine which St. John 



258 HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 

enforces throughout his Epistle. In the second chapter 
he says, " We know that we know him, if we keep his 
commandments, etc. Whoso keepeth his word, in 
him verily is the love of God perfected. He that 
abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as 
he walked, etc. He that loveth his brother abideth in 
the light [where the blood of Christ cleanseth from all 
sin] and there is none occasion of stumbling in him." 

The same doctrine runs also through the next chap- 
ter : " Every one that hath this hope in him, purifieth 
himself as he (Christ) is pure. Whosoever com- 
mitteth sin transgresseth also the law, etc., and ye know 
that he was manifested to take away our sins, [i. e., to 
destroy them root and branch ;] and in him is no sin. 
Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever 
sinneth, does not [properly] see him, neither know 
him ; he that does righteousness is righteous, even as 
he [Christ] is righteous. He that committeth sin, 
[i. e., as appears by the context, he that transgresseth the 
law,] is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the 
beginning : for this purpose was the Son of God mani- 
fested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. 
Whosoever is born of God [whosoever is made partaker 
of God's holiness, according to the perfection of the 
Christian dispensation] doth not commit sin, [i. e., does 
not transgress the law;] for his seed," the ingrafted 
word, made quick and powerful by the indwelling 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 



259 



Spirit, " remaineth in him, and [morally speaking] he 
cannot sin because he is [thus] born of God. For if 
ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one 
that doth righteousness is born of him ; " and that he 
that doth not righteousness, — he " that committeth 
sin," or transgresseth the law, — is, so far, of the devil, 
for " the devil " transgresseth the law, •'. e., " sinneth 
from the beginning. In this the children of God are 
manifest, and the children of the devil.* Whosoever 
does not righteousness, [*. whosoever sinneth, taking 
the word in its evangelical meaning,] is not of God," 
1 John iii. 3-11 ; ii. 29. 

If Mr. Hill cry out, " Shocking ! Who are those 
men that do not sin ? " I reply, All those whom St. 
John speaks of, a few verses below: "Beloved, if our 
heart condemn us ; [and it will condemn us if we sin- 
but God much more, for] God is greater than our 
hearts, etc. Beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, 
we have confidence toward God, etc., because we keep 
his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing 
in his sight," 1 John iii. 20, etc. Now, we apprehend, 
all the sophistry in the world will never prove that, 
evangelically speaking, "keeping God's command, 

♦This doctrine of St. John is perfectly agreeable to that of 
our Lord, who said that "Judas had a devil," because he gave 
place to the love of money; and who called Peter himself 
" Satan," when he " savored the things of men," in opposition to 
"the things of God." 



26o HALF-HOURS WITH JOHN'S EPISTLES. 



ments," and "doing what pleases him," is sinning. 
Therefore, when St. John professed to keep God's com- 
mandments, and to do what is pleasing in his sight, he 
professed what our opponents call sinless perfection, 
iind what we call Christian perfection. 

Mr. Hill is so very unhappy in his choice of St. John, 
to close the number of his apostolic witnesses for 
Christian imperfection, that, were it not for a few 
clauses of his First Epistle, the anti-Solifidian severity of 
that apostle might drive all imperfect Christians to 
despair. And what is most remarkable, those few 
encouraging clauses are all conditional: "If any man 
sin," for there is no necessity that he should ; or rather, 
(according to the most literal sense of the word 
u/xaprrj, which being in the aorist has generally the 
force of a past tense,) " If any man have sinned : if 
he have not sinned unto death : if we confess our sins : 
if that which ye have heard shall remain in you : if ye 
walk in the light : " then do we evangelically enjoy the 
benefit of our Advocate's intercession. Add to this, 
that the first of those clauses is prefaced by these 
words, " My little children, these things I write unto 
you, that ye sin not ; " and all together are guarded 
by these dreadful declarations : — " He that says, I know 
him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar. If 
any man love the world, the love of the Father is not 
in him. If any man say, I love God, and loveth riot 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 



26l 



his brother, [note : he that loveth another hath fulfilled 
the law,] he is a liar. There is a sin unto death, I do 
not say that he shall pray for it. Let no man deceive 
you ; he that does righteousness is righteous. He that 
committeth sin [or transgresseth the law] is of the 
devil." To represent St. John, therefore, as an enemy 
to the doctrine of Christian perfection, does not appear 
to us less absurd than to represent Satan as a friend to 
complete holiness. 



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